Harrier's Blog - Mixed Games & Mixed Drinks

Cocoa of the Week: Madagascar Noir (Prim's Choice)

As I mentioned before, my good friend Primrose, who was visiting today, supplied the chocolate this time, and apparently, she likes to move it, move it...

She brought me some "Madagascar Noir" dark chocolate, with a hint of citrus and 85% of pure cocoa. It's also "ethiquable"... I guess that's just a Prim thing...

We had 100 grams of chocolate to work with, though we both tried a bit of it before. As expected, it was quite rich and a little bitter. We ended up using the whole thing - minus the few bits we had eaten, of course.

We were careful with the amounts at first, only filling my macchiato glasses to a little under the halfway mark.

The rest was filled up with almond milk based froth from my new milk frother. No need for the lactose-intolerant grindette to reach for her magic antidotes again.

Primrose also added some of my sugar free caramel syrup from Monin on top, and I think that it improved it a lot, especially combined with that lovely milk froth.

Good stuff, Prim. I look forward to what you are going to bring me for our next meetup in about a month or so.

Woooow, that was some cocoa! So much theobromine that I almost fell asleep! The theobromine in cocoa works like a tranquilizer, it relaxes and makes happy. And while watching a movie and drinking that cocoa the grindette almost fell asleep. I think I will drink such cocoa bombs more often before going to bed. Had an amazing relaxing effect and was delicious!

Originally posted by Primrose6789
Woooow, that was some cocoa! So much theobromine that I almost fell asleep! The theobromine in cocoa works like a tranquilizer, it relaxes and makes happy.

Yes, hot cocoa does tend to make you feel nice and fuzzy inside. It's cool to have a grindette-friend who can explain the science behind it too, but I'll gladly just prepare and drink that stuff once a week. Maybe more often, if I feel like it.

Poker stats coming up soon, I hope I can get to them by the end of the day. My spreadsheets could use a little overhaul in general, I will try to use the last day of my vacation to make some progress there. My goal is to have new and improved versions of all of my tracking spreadsheets in time for the new year, at least.

After shipping one more SNG last night, I also managed to increase my Pokerstars bankroll to $3,511.27. I guess I'll just withdraw those $11.27 in excess of $3.5K now for the end of the month - it's enough for a nice meal.

Five Card Draw SNGs are going well. With that kind of development and with my bankroll now being able to take a few hits, I decided to play a $7.50 5CD MTT tonight. It also went well, but not quite well enough... I took a good chip lead, then bled chips away as I was getting card dead and had to raise/fold some predraw steals. In the end, my run was just good enough for an agonizing bubble finish...

Still, it was a very pleasant, relaxing day for me to close off my little vacation. I also made a lot of progress with my SNG tracking spreadsheet. Graphs are not available yet, but I finished a new input spreadsheet that supports SNGs from all relevant versions of poker, and also one statistics sheet for data from all formats - I hope there are no more errors left (actually, I caught another one as I was just about ready to submit my post).

This means that while the graphs will have to wait, I'm pleased to be able to present my combined SNG statistics this year for the first time ever.

These stats are comprised of SNGs from five different poker versions (six if we distinguish between 6-max and 9-max Hold'em). While we're at it, let's have a look at all of them:

Hold'em has some extra overall stats, combining 6-max and 9-max:

Five Card Draw is the biggest earner, while 8-Game has the best ROI% and ITM% - but it hardly ever runs. The stats are likely skewed by the low volume in there, though.

Late shift tomorrow, I don't think I will be able to play anything until the weekend.

It's finally weekend... so let's take a look out our stats.

We'll start with the Sharkscope leaderboard - this time, I remembered to screenshot it at the end of the month. We were doing really well in 5CD, though we missed the global #1 spot. Stud8 went poorly, some bad streaks took away whatever we made in the better phases. Hold'em can be ignored, I was just using a $1 SNG ticket.

I have already shown the results for the SNGs, now let's look at some graphs. Here are some for the 5CD SNGs - we're back!

After six bad months in a row, we finally see things going in the right direction again.

The monthly profit may not have been as good as in February, but that's because volume matters. I was still looking for work back then, and had a lot more time on my hands. The ROIs of the months are actually not too far apart (50.14% in February vs 45.25% in September and 46.16% in October).

Stud Hi-Lo, meanwhile, is still going up in general, but it is a lot shakier, and we had a bad month in October.

MTT stats are coming up next...

First, some results:

Not bad at all. I pointed out before that we finally made the $1K mark in MTT profits.

This is in no small part thanks to Badugi, which is still going amazingly well overall this year.

Last month was quite passable, really. We made over $100.

Nice to see steady progress in Badugi too.

What can I say... those are very good results. But right now, I guess I'm too tired to say much more about them...

Time to regain on some sleep this weekend.

I had a brief look at the WCOOP schedule, and decided to skip it. 8-Game today was the only event I'm interested in, and that one overlaps awkwardly with dinner time yet again.

Meanwhile, Christmas time is approaching... slowly. But it's soon enough for me to get some speculaas already, known as spekulatius here. It's a kind of spiced cookie, though there are also (quite boring) unspiced versions available.

I have always considered it to be the most cost efficient Christmas treat. One package costs less than a Euro, and even if you buy it well in advance, you may be struggling to use it all up in time for spring.

Normally, this would be something for the IDC-thread, but as I discovered a few years ago, those cookies do fit quite well with coffee - especially a certain kind of coffee with Irish cream, which I prepared right here (through the use of a simple capsule for my coffee maker).

Indeed, it makes me look forward to Christmas time already. It will start early this year.

Tonight's session started well enough, with one 5CD SNG shipped and a 2nd place in Stud8. Luck was not in my side in Badugi, where I got two bounties but didn't cash. A Courchevel SNG had a decent start, but then saw me out early too after I overplayed a draw. And in that 6 Card PLO MTT, I just couldn't get anything going... and it went downhill from there.

As we all know, tilt is not a good advisor. Combined with some bad luck, a bunch of otherwise promising 5CD SNGs after that went down the drain. A final 1st place in my last one saved the session somewhat, but I really can't afford that kind of sloppiness.

In general, I don't think it is a good idea to spread out into so many different formats right now, where I can't even expect to have a decent edge. I believe I should focus on what works right now. I say 6 Card PLO should be cut. Courchevel might deserve another chance, but I would probably be better off playing basic, pleb Hold'em SNGs instead.

5CD and Stud8 should be where it's at, together with my standard Badugi MTTs, of course. Also 8-Game, whenever I have the time, though I believe I need to de-rust there a little already.

Cocoa of the Week: Kinder Riegel

We can cut up just about any chocolate we like, right? Last week, we had some classy one, rich in cocoa. But I was wondering... how would our drinking chocolate turn out if we cut up some Kinder chocolate bars instead? Primrose called this idea "banhauser", I call it "so crazy that it might just work".

I assume most people are familiar with those Kinder bars. Just some milky stuff wrapped in chocolate. One bar weighs about 21 grams according to the package, so I used five of them, along with 250 ml of water.

Here's all the chocolate cut up:

With all that milky filling, I wasn't even sure how the finished drink would end up looking.

Well, it turned out like this - notice that it even formed a little frothy head on its own:

The taste was almost overwhelmingly sweet... but not too bad. Pretty much like you would expect one of those Kinder chocolate bars to taste in liquid form.

Still, I think I much prefer the standard drinking chocolates. That Kinder chocolate is better to be eaten.

Not sure about this one, my friend!
I think I have to try it some time. To me it somehow sounds like a bit Bahnhauser, but on the other hand, it COULD be good.... don´t know. Gotta try it.

I would describe tonight's SNG grind, but I'm still under shock from that soul crushing bubble finish in Stud8 a few seconds ago... All-in with a high hand vs a big stack with a low hand, while the other shorty bows out with jut 15 chips remaining. It seems like the usual split pot, then my opponent spikes trips on 7th street. I was so shocked that I forgot to save the hand before closing the table.

To make matters worse, this game had a lot of potential, and I made some bad mistakes to give it away, eventually having it end like this.

But now that I have vented about it, let's get a grip. Tonight was fine otherwise, with another Stud8 as well as a 5CD SNG shipped. Unfortunately, I bricked two Courchevel SNGs, putting me officially in the red in this game for this year. I said that Courchevel deserved another chance... well, there it was. While it is possible that I could play this rather interesting game profitably, my edge clearly isn't all that significant, if it is there at all. With this wide open meadow of different poker variants to choose from, I don't think I should waste too much time and effort on a game with such a small edge for me, especially when time for poker is such a rare commodity these days.

Back to the warehouse tomorrow - with plenty of espresso on standby, because it will be the morning shift for me.

So that's how I drag myself out of bed at 4:45 AM for those morning shifts:

A double shot of espresso and plenty of speculaas.

I should still find at least one day this week where I can put a bit of a nap in.

What! Not global #1?
Aw shucks.

I've not heard of speculaas until just no.
I'll try to see if I can find some — just to try them.

They appear to be of Dutch origin.

In Canada, the Christmas cookie is shortbread. It can be a soft cookie or a thick cake.

Originally posted by VorpalF2F
I've not heard of speculaas until just no.

Actually, you have. I remember briefly discussing them with you in IDC a year or two ago.

Over here, three different kinds are commonly available: spiced, regular and regular with almonds. If those are your options, I highly recommend the spiced version. The regular ones are just boring, like a generic butter cookie. The version with almonds is a minor upgrade, but still not as nearly as good as spiced. Not sure if a spiced version with almonds exists, I don't remember ever seeing any in the stores, at least.

In case you didn't read through it all, I added a "home café" of sorts to my "home bar" after some purchases while you were away, hence the new blog title. I will try to post about coffee variants instead of cocktails during the cooler seasons, and I introduced the "Cocoa of the Week" as a new series on weekends.

Originally posted by Harrier88
Actually, you have. I remember briefly discussing them with you in IDC a year or two ago.

NARF!

Throughout Australia, every place where you could get coffee it was the same thing: Espresso. The coffee was OK, but slow!
You walk up to the order person, give them your order, then stand in line waiting for your name to be called. When it's busy this can be up to 20 minutes!
 Someone takes the order, and writes something cryptic on the cup, including whatever they heard for the name. I took to using "James" because when I used "Vorpal" they came up with all sorts of nonsense.
 Someone grinds the coffee then loads the little holder and put it in the machine.
 Someone else takes the machines output and adds whatever additive has been requested — assuming that they deciphered the cryptic notation on the cup correctly. If it is steamed milk and another 10-20 seconds.
 Someone else looks down the list of orders and finds the order that matches what they think the cryptic notation on the cup says. When (If) they find it, they call out their best guess as to what the name says.
::diamond:  Assuming it is you name that they call (and no-one with the same name beats you to it) you now have coffee.

I found that when I ordered an Americano, the person taking the order would say, "long black" back to me, when in fact I've always considered them slightly different I've never had a Lungo. Each cup served takes about 45 seconds to prepare, and although there are 4 spigots on a typical espresso machine, there is only one person pulling the shots. A large Americano takes two shots, unless you specify "one shot". Two shots takes a wee bit longer, since they need to prep the spigot for the second one.
With twenty-plus people lined up at the airport it took almost that long (18 min) to get two long blacks (one "weak").

In general, I prefer brewed coffee. Yes, it might take 12 minutes to brew a pot, but after that just pour the stuff. We also have a French press, which does a decent job of making smaller amounts faster.

We considered a one-shot coffee maker, but considered that the cost of the coffee per cup was a bit high, and the machines are fairly large we decided against it. Knowing people that have them further convinced us not to get one. At first you could not recycle the used pods, but apparently you can now.

The last two days have been exhausting. A lot of things came up within a very short time, mostly job-related. I prefer not to talk about them until the dust has settled a bit. Don't worry about me, I'm okay, but it has been quite stressful, and it has taken a bit of a toll on me today.

There has been some poker, probably more than there should have been, but I won't follow up on it tonight, it would most likely be very counter-productive. Instead, I will try to get some early sleep in.

Stay healthy, everyone, I will see you back at the tables soon enough.

Looks like it was more than just a bout of stress. I'm genuinely sick, most likely influenza, from what I could tell.

Not much to do except for staying in bed...

Have a lot of warm tea with honey, some delicious chicken soup and a rest! You´ll be okay soon! ♠_thumbsup:

Update: Looks like it's not influenza, just a nasty infection. I should be back on my feet by Monday if I get some good rest over the weekend, I believe.

But as I always like to say, better to be sick with influenza than to have to watch a TikTok influencer.

I think I should be able to get some poker in already. I have also used some of my time to take some chess lessons. I find that studying chess can actually help your poker game as well, because it makes you adopt a mindset of thinking various moves ahead and anticipating your opponent's moves, including situations where you force your opponent into certain moves that are advantageous to you - exactly what you want to achieve at the poker table.

Where do you take chess lessons?
I used to follow a youtuber that analysed famous or interesting games.

Here's an example...