The debate continues….

After my last post I received a comment which I would like to respond to. I’m glad my post has sparked some interest and I’d like to thank “SlashGordon” for expressing his point of view. Here are some of the things he/she said (in italics) and my responses.

Where do you get the idea that 99% of all chemists believe in Darwinism? If you have hard facts on that I’d like to see it. For that to be known, every chemist would have to be asked what he believes.

If you’re looking for a record testimony of every scientists view then obviously your not going to get what you need from me, are you? I’m not claiming that exactly 99% of chemists believe one way or another. What I’m doing, is making an informed guess on what the figure might be. Unlike the Creationist believes, I don’t assert that I know the exact way things are. Either do Evolutionists for that matter. What Evolutionists do is gather information which they can use to guess and what is going on. Just like every other type of science. The information I have gathered would be life experience that through every level of my education I was taught evolution. I could give you 1000+ links that point to science papers on the matter. I didn’t really think that it would be necessary. Most new science is theory, just because it is a theory doesn’t mean it can’t be true.

Also, to say that “religious” ppl are closed minded when it comes to science. I don’t agree with that. Religious ppl are don’t believe that Darwinism is a science, and for good reason.

Here’s is a growing list of 600+ scientists that don’t believe in Darwinism:
http://discovery.org/scripts/viewDB/filesDB-download.php?command=download&id=660

I never said that all religious people are closed minded. Maybe read over what I said again carefully. I know religious people who believe in Evolution. I’m not (unlike Creationist people) going to use this as a reason why Creationism must not be true. Again, I’m not saying the Creationism isn’t true. I’m saying that from the evidence that has been put in front of me (from both sides) I have made an assertion that Evolution theory is more likely. A growing list of 600 scientists that are “skeptical” (direct quote from title) doesn’t prove anything. I’m skeptical about the Evolutionary theory being 100% correct as well. That’s why I’m glad we have people out there looking for evidence to support/disprove some of the things being said. Creationists are happy not to look for this evidence and stand strong with what they have been taught and not seen. It’s funny how the Creationist view keeps changing over time as things get proven without a shadow of a doubt. If you look back in history religion has been doing this to every single type of science. Since the persecution of Galileo for saying that the earth wasn’t the centre of the universe. Then once it has been proven the church changes its view on it. Science only says something is correct until something proves it wrong (or more precisely). Religion says things are the “truth” until science makes them use another “truth”.

To believe that every complex thing we see today, evolved or came into being, from a single dot, billions of years ago, that came from nothing and nowhere, and then somehow exploded into all the planets, stars, moons, meteors etc (without ever observing it) by energy that came from nowhere and by nothing, takes great faith.

 

I’m sure there aren’t astrophysicists out there that say the energy for the big bang came from “no where”. They say “I don’t know”. Creationists can’t say that. They proclaim to know all until someone higher in their church tells them to believe in something different. I’m not sure why you think we haven’t observed plants and solar systems being made. Maybe you should check the countless science news sites. We are observing them every day.

 

The Big Bang is discredited for the simple fact that some planets and moons rotate in different directions, and not in the same direction. In fact, Uranus spins like a wheel.

This is completely untrue. There also is a mountain of evidence to support this theory, red shifting for example (and I’m not even an astrophysicist).

It takes faith, to believe in the primeval soup that came from nowhere and by nothing

Again, religion is the only supporter of these “nowhere and nothing” claims.

after millions of years of raining (where did the rain come from? Nowhere and by nothing?)

That’s actually up there with the stupidest argument ever. Where did rain come from? Would you like an address? I’ll give you where rain might have come from. Rain, is actually water. Once you’ve comprehended that, move on and keep reading. Water, is made from base elements (which Creationism doesn’t disagree with). Just like every other material in this universe, it is created by elements coming together to form molecules. We can reproduce this in labs. Its basic chemistry that has been used to make drugs and lots of other things you might be familiar with.

If the Intelligent Creator is all powerful, and all knowing, He doesn’t need to have a beginning. He would be the uncreated Creator, which makes better sense than the all mighty “Dot”.

Well I’m sure just by you saying “He doesn’t need to have a beginning” that you have proved a “truth” as religion might say. Ok, I’m going to use your logic and “prove” that the big bang happened. Its very clever, watch. Big Bang doesn’t need a beginning…WOW I did it. Just by saying I don’t need to have an answer, I have completely proved what I’m trying to say. What great “sense” I’m making, as you put it. I’d make a great scientist. I could prove that pigs actually rule the world from underground bases. When I’m asked where they are I’d simply say “I don’t need to show you”.

The thing about the Big Bang is again, its scientific theory. People are actively trying to figure it out. Because guess what, it’s really hard. Remember that the earth revolving around the sun was once a theory that was hard to understand too. Now its fact. Unlike the word “truth” that Creationists use.

There should be “missing links” and transitionals running around today, for everyone to see, if evolution was true. There would be so many transitionals, that there wouldn’t be any debate about it. But, cuz there aren’t any transitionals running around, and none ever found underground (except those found in the evolutionists’ imaginations), it takes faith just to believe they ever existed.

 

I don’t proclaim to know the exact ins and outs of fossils and the mutation of species. Although I would argue that IMO, there are “transitionals” running around. Just because there aren’t animals that look like both people and fish doesn’t disprove we evolved from them. Creationism likes to make big jumps so it seems more unlikely to those they are trying to teach (usually kids). Survival of the fittest suggests that “transitionals” die out because they cannot compete with the new species that is created. Therefore the link between a lizard and a bird could have been made extinct by the bird itself. The bird would be more capable of obtaining food and mating then a lizard with only half evolved wings.

“Lucy” is a hoax, and most ppl probably don’t know it. She was found with NO feet or hands, yet she is displayed having human hands and feet at the St. Louis Museum, making it appear that Lucy is a missing link. Evolutionists have a nasty habit of using drawings, and not actual bones, as evolutionary evidence.

Recently, an entire village was created by just a few bones found in Indonesia. Evolutionists called these ppl, “hobbits”. They proceeded to draw a “hobbit” man, woman and child, from the few bones found. These types of hoaxes seem to be never ending.

Again you’re using hoaxes to disprove things. That is the perfect example of a closed mind. I can name heaps of religious hoaxes (i.e. Mary statues crying blood etc). That doesn’t mean that I am going to use them to “disprove” there is a God. It’s a stupid way of thinking and Evolution doesn’t need to resort to those kinds of pathetic attempts.

Creationists also believe in variations. or microevolution, as evolutionists like to call it. A big dog, giving birth to a small dog, isn’t evolution. A bird evolving into a bat would be evolution (macroevolution), but that’s not being observed anywhere on this planet.

 

This is a perfect example of what I was saying before. Creationists didn’t believe this 100 years ago. Now it has been show to them with enough proof that they accept it. It seems backward to me that religious people need to have science unequivocally proven and show to them right in front of their faces to believe it. However when I comes to a higher power they are happy to just believe because they were told to. They don’t realize that they would have completely different believes if they had been brought up in a (insert another religion here) family.

The Theory of Evolution, or Darwinism, or Neo-Darwinism, is religious, in the highest degree.

No religion is “truth”.

Evolution is theory. Most people can pick that up in it title. The Theory of Evolution.

As far as that debate. I don’t think Bower is that good. He spent most of his time being disrespectful, making dumb jokes, and making predictions what Pendleton was going to say. At the start of the debate, it appeared to me, that Bower was making excuses why he was going to lose the debate.

Bower actually won the debate so I’m not sure why he needed to make excuses for losing it. As for making predictions for what Mr Pendleton was going to say, its not hard when he just recited the exact same things word for word as his video on YouTube.

Open minds only

YouTube really does get you watching lots of different stuff with the “Related Video’s” section that is next to a video your watching. The thing I search on YouTube the most is robotics videos. As I started to look at related videos from a MIT robot this was the path I ended up on…

MIT Robot – > Mars Rovers -> Video about Life on Mars -> a Creationist Video

I have no beef with religion in its basic form. Be good to your neighbor, don’t steal shit etc etc. If you believe in a higher power, thats your choice. What I do have a problem with is people using religion to make money or force other people to do what they want. This includes trying to convert people to their way of thinking.

I believe the bible was created to show people examples of why you should be a good person. People have used the bible and their interpretations of it for personal gain.

One aspect of religion that I hate, is the closed mind most religious people have about science. Creationism is the worst of it IMO. I’m going to go through a “few” points this guy brings up and why I think he is wrong.

• At the start of the video his name appears with “Chemist” under it. Although it turns out he does have a chemisty degree, this is obviously a way of showing the audience that he is a chemist and knows what he’s talking about. Forgetting the fact that 99% of chemists disagree with what his saying. I think it’s a bit backwards using a science title to fight against science.
• He then goes on to explain why he thinks the earth is only 6000 years old. He uses the bible to get the ansestry all the way back to Adam and Eve. One point he makes is that there are 75 generations back from Jesus and gives an estimate of 50 years for each generation. This is “around” 4000 years which seemingly validates his point. The life expectecy in Roman times (the 1500 year period around the birth of christ) was only 28. Clearly the only figure he could use to get the figure he needs without it sounding stupid is 50 years.
• He then “proves” the scientific geological clock wrong by saying that at the grand canyon only has half of the layers of rock that geologists suggest should be there. Forgetting the point that when new rock is distributed around the earth from violent events in the past, that the rock isn’t distributed perfectly around the entire earth. When a volcano erupts, the lava doesn’t flow across the face of the planet. This isn’t even taking into account erosion from wind and water.
• He then starts to explain how Evolution works. He makes jumps from fish to cats and from cats to apes. Clearly trying to show how huge of a difference there is between the species.
• He then finds things in nature that are 6000 years old. Therefore proving the earth is only 6000 years old. I can find things that are 2 years old as well.
• Then he goes onto explain why we have 6 billion people on the earth today. He uses the figure of 150 years for a population to double. He then halves the population every 150 years to get a population of 5.5 when the great flood happened. He doesn’t give any reason whatsoever to explain why the population would double every 150 years. The only reason I can think of is thats the number that gives him the answer he needs. Actual population figures show that the population growth has been quickly increasing for the last 1000 years. Not staying as a linear constant.
• He also discredits fossils age because they don’t come out of the ground with tags on them with the date they were created. Such a brilliant tactic.
• He then uses examples of carbon dating that gave wrong results. This somehow proves that carbon dating doesn’t work. Even though every single type of test thats ever been created has given a false result before. I’m sure there have been plenty of examples where a pregnancy test has given a false result. I don’t see him saying that pregnancy tests aren’t to be trusted.
• He then asks people to ask “Were you there?” when people say things are over 6000 years old. When he suggests what to do when the question is turned back on the person, he only offers the bible as proof that you can use. 2000 years of Chinese whispers translated through many languages. This is the proof you should use when science asks you a question thats to hard for you.

After sitting through this video I came across a comment from someone to this link. It’s a video of a 2.5 hour debate between this guy and a professor with a PhD in Biology at a college in the USA.

If your interested in this blog then the 2.5 hours is well worth it. He gets owned completely on every topic they discuss.

Xbox 360 Embracing my Pirate Ways

I download a lot of poker torrents.  Australian television is so far behind the states with poker shows that I am forced to get them from torrent sites.  (thats my excuse and I’m sticking with it).  The big problem with this is I hate watching videos on my PC.  Mostly because I have a shitty desk at home with possibility the most uncomfortable chair ever….mostly.

So I have been  forced to burn the AVI’s to a DVD using Nero to watch on my DVD player.  This takes so long to do and really isn’t worth it as it wastes DVD-R’s.  Then I got an Xbox 360.  I had heard you could stream media to it from a PC over a network.  When I first looked into it there was a requirement to have the PC running Windows Media Center XP Edition.  I tried to upgrade my PC to this but didn’t have much success as I only had an OEM version of it.

After giving up I went back to watching the videos on my laptop which was a bit better then just watching them on my PC.  Oh how I longed to be able to download a file and be able to watch it on my couch once it had finished.

Then as I was screwing around with some settings in my Xbox console, I found out that in a recent software update release, Microsoft have included support for streaming only .WMV from a PC.  I already had setup streaming of photos and music from the PC so the Xbox discovered some videos automatically and I was ready to go straight away.  The only problem was most of the video’s I download are in .AVI format.  Oh ohhhhhhhhh.

So the search began to find a free video converting program.  I hunted around and could only find shareware type software that would only encode the first 20 minutes or something shit like that.

I was heartbroken.

Then I came across this article. It explains how to encode using VLC.  The author has also included a batch file which makes the process very easy.  VLC seemed to encode a lot quicker then anything else I had tried and worked perfectly every time.  Needless to say this isn’t what I expected as video conversion usually is a big fuck around with heaps of stupid errors.

Now look at me, I’m on easy street watching torrents on my TV and laughing at all you suckers.

Steep Re-Learning Curve

Over the last couple of nights I have been trying to resurrect my old Uni AI Assignment (Rar copy of files). The main problem I’ve had is just getting the thing to run! It’s been at least 4 years since I’ve use javac to compile a Java program and classpaths were my first hurdle. After figuring that out I could then attempt to compile which wasn’t pretty.

I had to make some changes, as the code was written for Java 1.1 and a lot has changed since then. After trawling through the latest API I found all the changes I needed.

The last thing to change for it to run (still a lot of code deprecated left) was the event handling for key strokes. This doesn’t sound like it would be too much trouble considering I was dealing with Threading issues before this.

Boy was I wrong, it took me about 5 hours last night to figure out the new structure of the java.awt.event.KeyEvent class. In the end I could not get any key events to fire when running the KeyListener on the Applet. I had to attached the KeyListener to a useless TextField and the events could then get passed on to the EventManager class which passes on the event to each object of interest.

Because there are more then one type of Agent in this system the EventManager object and EventHandler interface are a very good way of spreading out the workload of event handling between multiple objects (i.e fish and shark).

I didn’t write this code (or the majority of the game). When I first started to look at the code again it seemed very confusing. But once I start adding more agents with different abilities these classes should help me sort everything out in terms of events.

Its a good concept which involves objects registering to a central handler object all the events it would like to be told about. In the current version of the game these events are restricted to keyboard events.

But I was thinking of expanding this into a multiagent system where if an agent comes across something interesting, it could fire an event to a central control object which could inform other agents near by about it. The good thing about this is that each agent implements a EventHandler interface which has a method called handleEvent(Event e).

Therefore each agent can handle the event in different ways. The practical application of this would be a multiagent system in which there are 4 types of simliar robots exploring terrain let say….on Mars!

Each type of robot has different sensors in it. For example each robot has one function which might go something like this.

1. Camera vision
2. Chemical Analyzes
3. Rock/Soil Sample Collecting
4. Power Hub (A robot who’s main purpose is to refuel other robots)

So if a robot that analyzed some rock found something interesting it could inform (using a wireless LAN) other robots around it to have a look. After this has happened the original robot could then move on while others came over to inspect the site using there own instruments.The inspiration for this idea came from Dr. Steven Dubowsky who has been doing research for NASA in this area. By splitting up each ability for different robots you can build much smaller robots that can complete a task as a group. This is much more robust (IMO) and closely follows how nature has done this. For example how ant colonies have different types of ants for different jobs.

Most of my thinking in robotics comes from nature. AI through evolution of best practices for rewards is another area I think nature should be looked at.

So what is the next step in my “vision” for this program. The first thing is to implement a part of the program which I thought I had done but turned out not to be there. I thought I had got the remaining fish left to “mate” with each other and share attributes to create another fish. The other thing I plan to do is to make the “player” (or shark) autonomous as well. By getting it to see when a fish is on its own and to go and get it. Then I can run the program with “eating” as a positive outcome and see if the shark learns to do this on its own.

B…b..b…..b…..BOOYA

Tonight I played in the PokerNetwork Online League #11 ($20 buy in). As I mentioned last post I think Omaha is my best game so I was confident I could get another points cash.  I played very tight, solid poker which isn’t usually how I play Omaha.  Omaha is the type of game that you can play loose and win big pots.  But, if you play that way you have to be prepared to lay some fairly big hands down when you think your beat.

Throughout the tourney I kept up with the player average without taking to many risks until the final 2 tables.

There were 35 starters, but it took a long time to get down to those final 18. It was then I had to start making some big lay downs.  I laid low flushes down on at least 3 occasions, one of which I was shown I was beat.  I seemed to make a lot of straights on paired boards and laid a few of them down as well.  I think this was a turning point in my Omaha play as I wouldn’t have been laying many of those hands down previous to this game. By stealing a few pots now and then it enabled the blinds to not get out of control and I could wait to slow play a flopped boat when it came up.

I played really good poker all the way to getting my first cash of the League when we got down to 4 left.  I was the short stack at that stage with about 10,000 and the other 3 having 18,000 – 30,000.

I made a sick runner runner flush all in to get up in the top 2.  From there I slowed right down until I got heads up.  I started with a 3-1 chip disadvantage and got really lucky hitting at least one more runner runner flush and a huge pot which gave me the lead hitting a 2 outer on the river to make a full house over a made nut flush.

After this the blinds were 10% of both our stacks and rampant blind stealing between us started.  We swapped the lead around 4 times before I called his all in with a wrap around straight draw.  We both hit it and split the pot.  I got him down again and called his all in with a flush draw that never came.

I got a nice run of cards after that and stole a lot of blinds in a row.  When he got short stacked again (and the blinds went up) he pushed on a flop with a flush draw.  I had top pair (I think) and had a feeling I was above 50% if I made this call for the win.  I made the call and he missed his draw.

1st place got me $315 and a good chuck of points which should put me into the top 10 for the league.  The top 10 at the end of the season play for an Aussie Millions seat which would be an absolute dream for me.

Either way I’m free rolling for the rest of the league with my win so I’m stoked about that. The main thing is I know I’m playing good poker against good opponents and if I can get myself to those last 2 tables consistently I will get some results when the cards fall my way.

PokerNetwork.com League Game #10

After missing the last couple of League games over at PokerNetwork I saddled up tonight with a Hold’em game with 47 starters.

None of the bounties (Players if you knock out you get money for) started on my table. I didn’t catch any hands early and was watching one hyper aggressive player raising to 22xBB (Big Blind) pre flop. He was raising every other hand this way too. A normal sized raise for the first 5 levels is 2.5 – 4 BB at most. Any more then that and your in danger of getting pot committed with a medium strength hand right at the beginning of the tournament.

A few people were calling him to the flop and then folding to any bet. You see people play like this now and then and if you get the cards it doesn’t take a very complex play to get all their chips.

Luckily the cards I needed were dealt to me not long after this. Here (Hand History AA) is how I got the chips I needed to get play tight and super aggressive until the 1st break. He had K 10 (a bad play calling my initial raise).

Before the 1st break I got dealt AcQc and made a good call against a player all in for about 1/3 of my stack. He had AJ and got runner runner Q, 10 to make a straight on me.

I got to the first break with about 3500 in chips. I started with 2000.

After the break people started getting short stacked and not many hands weren’t raised and called by multiple people before the flop. I didn’t play many hands and stole a few pots to get up to 4500.

Then my internet connection started going in and out. Really frustrating and was making me play badly because I was always hurried to make a decision with no idea about what was going on.

Because of that I changed gears and started playing a lot slower and didn’t make as many steal plays. The blinds had gotten up there and just before we got down to the final two tables we were playing with a 25 ante as well.

I was just holding on with 3200 (I had been card dead since my high of 4500). The final two tables were 9 handed and to get points for the league I had to get in the top 13.

Short stacks were doubling up all around me as I had to fold my blinds and antes away with pathetic cards.

There were only 15 left and I had 1100. Blinds were at 200 – 400 with a 25 ante. I found pocket 6’s two from the BB and went all in. I was almost hoping for a call when I got one from the BB with 10,2 offsuit.

Boy I didn’t think I’d be in that good of shape! I was shocked that he called with that as he didn’t have many chips left either. The door card was a deuce which had me a little worried. The next two were an 8 and a 10. Another 10 on the turn and that was the end for me.

Two places off the points bubble. I had “points cashed” in the previous 3 events and was about 20th on the leader board.

The next league tournament on Sunday is Omaha. Which I consider my best game. Hopefully I can cash (both points and money) in this one so I can freeroll for the rest of the season.

Oh no, not another Blog

My first blog post. How super exciting. Lets get one thing straight right from the get go. I can’t spell, I don’t want to spell and I don’t care if bad spelling annoys the crap out of you.

Now we’ve got rid of the grammar police I can move on to the reasons I’ve decided to bless the Internet with my blogging presence.

1. I’ve seen a lack of these so called blogs and I feel compelled to change that
2. I’m about to start getting back into robotics and feel blogging my success/failures MIGHT actually help other people (which is what I understand the point of blogs to be)
3. I really, really want to put links on random words in my blogs that point to funny things.

So I’ve been inspired to get back into robotics and AI programming after my super smart friend Glennzor showed me the “new” Lego Mindstorm robots that you can get. Basically its a programmable board sitting in a Lego Technic shell. It has some shit GUI programming for it, but can be (from what I understand) programmed using a higher language.

At $380 a pop for the setup its a little out of my price range at the moment because of a small cash flow problem I’m having with the ATO. Those crazy cats, gotta love’em.

But once I get my hands on one it will be a good refresh back into robots for me. I did an Engineering course at Uni where I made a robot using a Motorola Chip that could use IR sensors to follow a simple track and find its way back if lost.

While that doesn’t sound cool, believe me, it was. There were two things I didn’t like about the subject though. The first was that I had to code in assembly language. I hate assembly language. The second was that watching a robot car follow a track isn’t all that fulfilling. However, I did get to learn a lot about the basics of how to let a robot control its moments autonomously.

The second (and more important) thing I did in Uni was an AI subject. I think it was called “Intelligent Agents”. I did some really cool stuff in that which ended up being an assignment in Java that kinda used Evolutions theory of survival of the fittest on virtual fish. The fish basically had attributes like

• Distance from another fish
• Speed of swimming
• Distance away from a virtual shark (which was your mice cursor)

So using your shark you could kill off fish that were out on there own (like what a shark would do in nature). As you killed off fish they were replaced by combining the Chromosome attributes of the remaining fish to form a new fish. Basically letting the surviving fish have a bit of a shagfest.

After a small amount of time you could see all the fish banding together and moving away from your little shark as a group just like in real life. Who’d have thought.

The professor that took this class was blind and was doing research in Robotic Vision which also sparked my interest.

So the past two weeks I’ve been busy thinking up crazy Robot challenges for me to work on. 99% of these I don’t see myself ever completing but here they are -

• Using only normal video inputs from cameras, get a robot to have depth perception and internal local mapping using an array of techniques not restricted too
  • Bifocal Cameras
  • Auto Focus algorithms
  • Structure from motion
  • Cameras being able to pan/tilt independent of the main “head” i.e like our eyes do
• Use machine learning to let a robot work out the quickest and safest way to navigate through a dynamic maze.
• Get a robot to be able to recharge itself autonomously.
• Work on doing something with a lot of small redundant robots that use Collective AI to communicate and solve a problem that one itself couldn’t solve.

Oh I have more but this will do for now. Some of us have to get up early in the morning. I’m luckily not one of them

APL Donkfest

I sat down at the Fitzy’s Australian Poker League Monday night tournament confident about my chances once again. When the TD (Tournament Director) asked first timers to put up their hands, 4 of the 7 other people at my table put them up. Great, more suckouts for me tonight. The TD then pointed out the current Venue Leader which happened to be 2 to my left. A cocky looking guy who was trying to pretend he didn’t know how blinds and the dealing worked. I’m not sure who he was trying to fool (I suppose all the new players), but after you’ve been pointed out by the TD, the jig is up buddy.

Play began slowly (as usual) and I didn’t hit a hand until my first BB (Big Blind). Pocket 7’s. I checked my BB option and saw a flop. Q, 7, A was a nice start for my first played hand. I raised hoping for a Ace to call me. One did and the turn draws a blank. I moved in the rest of my stack as the only player left was a beginner who had been making some awful calls since play started. He still didn’t realise you could fold at any time and when he was about to put the call in I reminded him with urgency that he could fold.

I did this for two reasons. One, if he folded the table would think I was scared of a call and like to move chips around with nothing. Second, he was actually a nice guy and I had been helping him with how to play and didn’t want a conflict of interest. Mind you, if this was a cash game he would most certainly be on his own.

Turned out he folded and I drew in a nice pot. This resulted in a big smirk from the VL and I saw my opportunity for a play at him if a situation would allow.

The cards I was looking for came up on my next BB. Pocket 9’s looked good enough for a small raise. As expected everyone called the raise as no one, I repeat NO ONE in the APL can lay a hand down with chips committed, unless its massive bet.

The flop brang what I was looking for – 9, J, 2.

I checked to the VL (venue leader) who bet at it for 200 (blinds 25-50, starting bank 1500). Another caller (with a runner runner straight/flush draw no doubt) until it folded to me. I knew I was in the lead as the VL’s bet looked weak. I slow played the set and just called. The turn was a blank and I again checked to the VL whilst looking nervous (an obvious reverse tell that a good player would notice). He looked at me and smirked again while throwing a purple $500 chip into the pot. The 3rd player folded quickly and I “went into the tank”. After checking my cards for what must have been the 4th or 5th time, nodding my head up and down like I was counting out a non existent straight draw, I called.

The River offered no flush or straight draw possibilities which only left me behind to a set of jacks. I checked again to him and he bet a small amount (about 200 again I think). I beat him in the pot with an All In raise. He was obviously shocked and yet still couldn’t realize what was happening to him.

He called (I actually had him covered by 100 or so) and stood up, smirked again and walked away mumbling something about “good hand”. This is the main reason I play in the APL. The chances of me getting to the State finals aren’t good and from there the chances to get some money are even worse. There are so many bad calls that its usually reduced to a crap shoot. Even the “regulars” I see at every venue I go to (be it on the Gold Coast or Central Brisbane) have no clue what they are doing.

I got a run of bad beats (which I won’t bore you with – I’m sure there will be enough of them in this blog) which moved me back down to my $1500 starting bank when I was moved to a big stack table with some of the worse bogan players ever. I couldn’t wait to stick my money in with a J,3 on a J,5,6, board. I got called by the guy I was helping. He had a Jack with a Q kicker and that was that.

I later heard my friend got into the money and got a nice beat when his trip J’s with an ace kicker got run down by a full house J’s full of Q’s.