Stoxpoker 4th of july party

Date: Sat, Jul 5, 2008 Professional Internet

So dusty hosted all of us at his palms suite at the fantasy tower last night and it was a blast. Excess was certainly the watchword as the night went on.

I made the standard backdoor exit around 1130 as I play in the ME today, but just got the full report this morning about how the rest of the night went. Ed miller rolled in this morning at whenever and when I asked him if he slept well, the answer of course was no and here's why:

evidently around 2 or so mbolt1 had the brilliant idea to play some poker. Ed declined but was finally convinced to play some blackjack. The initial martingale strategy didnt work, but evidently the final martingale did, culminating in matt and ed syndicating enough to split 77 vs deal 6 and then not being able to double when one of the 7s drew and ace because everyone at the table was out of money. It turns out that the doulbe would have caused them to lose and the dealer used that card to help bust. On to craps. But nobody except ed knew how to play so they asked him how the game works. Ed's explanation: "you just put money down and then roll the dice and they give you more money, but everyone once in a while they take it all." short period of silence, then "allright, let's play!"

The other best line of the night was trying to decide which good looking yet scantily clad women were in fact pros. Geoff Herzog had the perfectly logical and best explanation I've heard... "The pros are the ones that talk to you".....

I'll be interested to see if dusty can make the noon start time for the ME.

Man vs Machine, Day 2: Humans Win!

Date: Sat, Jul 5, 2008 Professional Internet

So that sets the official record at 2-1-1 for humanity (1 additional win for Polaris in my exhibition match with Victor). Today's team was Victor Amacosta and Rich McRoberts, a pair of tough mid-high HU regulars who know which raise goes where. The final score for the human team was +25BB, which counts as a statistical win. Tomorrow we have a special last-minute-announcement of Mark "Newhizzle" Newhouse as our on-the-floor competitor. Play will start at 1pm.

My sample-hocking skills are definitely getting honed, and to be honest I was a little exhausted after the con today. Afterwards we stopped by Dusty's PokerStars SNE suite at the Palms, which is some ridiculous condo-style apartment with a stripper pole in the shower which runs something like $3,000 per night. Dusty, being awesome, ordered up a room-service feast which made for a pretty wicked party. The Stoxpoker crowd, and the affiliated friends and associates of said crowd, is a great group to hang out with. I saw Stosh running around with a camera, so there may be a few pics we can throw up later on.

You can discuss this blog here.

Photos courtesy of the CPRG.

Bryce "Freedom 25" Paradis talking about Stoxpoker

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A member of the public plays against Polaris

The Polaris team hard at work.



Rich in the background



The display showing the cards



Ali dropped by and is talking with Marty



Rich playing against the bot



The Team Polaris shirts

Man vs Machine, Day 1: Tie!

Date: Fri, Jul 4, 2008 Professional Internet

"Would you like a free sample of online poker coaching?"

In addition to working on my spiel and hocking tons of merch at the Stoxpoker booth today (booth turned out great, we have an awesome location) we kicked off day 1 of Man vs Machine. The match ended in a statistical tie, with Polaris edging out over Nick and Kyle by 2.5BB. All the content will be moving to our MvM webpage shortly, but since we've currently got a technical hickup you can review it all on the CPRG's MvM Website.

HHs from the match can be found here: http://www.cs.ualberta.ca/~games/poker/man-machine/Results/live/

Live CPRG blog from the event can be found here: http://www.cs.ualberta.ca/~games/poker/man-machine/Live/Day1/

Live blog and live HH updates should start tomorrow as we run the second match.

Photos courtesy of the CPRG:

The computer poker research group liveblogging station.



Nick "Stoxtrader" Grudzien taking on Polaris

The man-machine poker interface



Bryce "Freedom25" Paradis gives us the eye



Nick in concentration



IJay, Bryce, and Jim chatting while the match is going on.



One of last year's human competitors Ali Eslami stopped by the booth and
talked with Mike Bowling



A couple of the stoxpoker members

Some Stoxpoker swag



IJay talking to a couple of expo attendees



Nick in the background next to a set of University of Alberta poker
chips



Nick enjoying his comeback against Polaris



The view of the booth from the other side of the Hertz booth.


Looking down the expo floor

Nick hits four of a kind on the river. Polaris had fours full of
tens



Nick enjoys his four of a kind hand.



Nick gets up after his 500 hand session.



Nick does an interview with Dave after his session was over.



With just 11 hands to go, Polaris was nearly at the threshold of
winning. In the end, Polaris ended up just a small amount which counted
as a draw.

Everything but Poker

Date: Fri, Jul 4, 2008 Professional Internet

I haven't had time to even take a crap the past 3 weeks, nevermind play poker. I closed yesterday on land in my hometown in Massachusetts, and will be building my house starting (barring conservation nonsense) to build at the end of July. Note: by *build*, I mean to say I am the general contractor. A framer I am not.

It's taken nothing short of a miracle to procure this property. I got no less than 8 phone calls the day before the closing from my attorney that there were several title issues with the seller. Not so bad for him since he has an extra 30 days to cure the issue. VERY bad for me because my mortgage rate lock ended today. I locked in at 5.875%. If the closing were delayed by one day, it would be at 6.625% (I locked literally on the best possible day). In money terms that meant about $220/month extra in my mortgage payment for the next 30 years. Yay for closing on time. I have no idea what the issues were but all I care about is that they were solved.

In addition to building a house, I started with a new part time job as a nutrition manager consultant. Basically, I customize individual meal programs and menu plans for clients, while also holding group sessions about nutrition education. There are only a handful of people in the US with this certification, so if there is one in your area I'd highly recommend using them over a typical weight-loss program. I hope this takes off here as well as it did where I was previously doing it, unfortunately it means July may have fewer poker hands than June (about 3k, ugh).

cliff notes: closed on piece of property, building my house, starting newish job as a nutrition manager, all while my wife is now 7 months pregnant. I wonder if I can jam anything else into my life right now. I guess sleeping is overrated.

Vegas Is Here!!

Date: Thu, Jul 3, 2008 Professional Internet

So far Vegas has been absolutely awesome. I got to meet Stosh, Bryce, Ed, Hunter and his wife and brother, Jade, Jim (CEO), Ijay and should get to meet Matros as well as Colin here within day or so. Everyone has been great to hang with. The first night we got to all just hang out and shoot the shit over a few beers so obviously you can’t beat that. The Stoxpoker house is very nice although I luck sacked my way into a penthouse suite at the Palms courtesy of Poker Stars just being their usual awesome selves when it comes to customer service. I am going to post pics soon, and boy are you guys in for a treat. The room is pretty sick and let’s just say that it would be a single guys’ fantasy room. I’d like to go into more detail, but I think it would be best if I kept it a mystery and posted pics or maybe even a video blog that gives a tour. Ok, well I will give one sneak prevew. There is a shower that is bigger than some of the bedrooms at my house that has a stripper pole with flasing lights of all different colors on it with a jacuzzi right next to it. SICK!

I bought into the main event last night. I wanted to play in Sunday but so did everyone else and their mother so it was full. I am playing Saturday instead which cuts into my social life some (no 4th of July party for me because I definitely am not going to be hung over for the main event) and also means that I will probably not be at the meet and greet at Hooters. This really bums me out because I was really excited to meet some of the Stoxpoker members. I am going to be at the booth a lot during every day that I don’t play this week so if you were hoping to meet me for whatever reason, please come by the booth. I definitely don’t want to miss out on meeting anyone so please stop by if it isn’t too inconvenient.

Tonight my buddy Mike Lavery and his new girl friend are flying in from Carolina and we have a pretty baller night out planned. We are starting with drinks at the penthouse and from there going to Fix at the Bellagio which is my wife and I’s favorite restaurant. From there we are going to take a ride in a helicopter and see the strip from above. After that I scored some VIP passes to the playboy club at Palms that get all of us in with no cover and bypass all of the lines. If we can’t have fun on a night like this we should all just shoot ourselves…lol. I am looking forward to meeting Mike’s new girlfriend as well and in just a few hours the night will begin!!

Discuss this blog here:

http://www.stoxpoker.com/forums/showthread.php?p=92556#post92556

Matt Blogs the WSOP: $1500 NLHE Updated Update

Date: Wed, Jul 2, 2008 Professional Internet

Yeah, I made the final table. You might be able to watch on ESPN360 tomorrow. I'm going to sleep now for a bit.

Matt Blogs the WSOP: Didn't We Just Do This?

Date: Tue, Jul 1, 2008 Professional Internet

I thought I was playing a Limit Hold 'Em shootout today. Turned out I had my dates mixed up and I was registered for yet another $1500 No Limit Hold 'Em event with 2,700 people. Well, I'm in the money again, and again I have above average chips going into Day Two (41.8K). I'm not in nearly as good a position as I was last time, when I had 113.6K at the end of day one, but you can't ask for much more than to have above-average chips going into the second day of a tournament. I'm going to try to run up my stack tomorrow and give myself a chance at the final table. Wish me luck.