I have had a lot of thoughts floating around in my head and I want to get some of them down on paper.
I have been fascinated by Twitch lately. I had never really looked into it until recently. It reminds me of cam shows probably because it is cam shows. I remember one time I had to find a place to live out East to cover my sales territory. I heard this one place was kind of good so I got a hotel to scope it out. Somehow I came across these live online sex shows and did that all day. I wasn't even jerking it I was just really interested in how it all worked. By the end of the day I hadn't even checked out any apartments so I ended up not moving there. To this day that's the only time I ever watched live online sex shows. Fast forward maybe 3 years and I am helping this guy out in Alcoholics Anonymous. Turns out he used to fill himself up with meth to do cam sex shows all day so he could fill himself up with meth to party all night so he could fill himself up with good dick into the morning, rinse, repeat, ad infinitum. It's great until it isn't.
So, that is kind of like my first inkling of a feeling in regards to Twitch. There are some good channels though. I watched RaSZi make a run at winning a $5,200 tourney the other day. I thought he made some mistakes but what the fuck do I know? I haven't been profitable in a $5,000 tourney since a live WSOP NLHE event in 2008. Overall, he played great and it was pretty fun to watch. I remember RaSZi and I didn't always see eye to eye but when I met him in Vegas he was friendly and chill. I remember I did an MS Paint of RaSZi tilting which is probably somewhere on this website. Those were the days. Other than that that MS Paint file is long gone. Ironically, one night my friends went out to my favorite sushi restaurant and invited me along but I declined because "games are too good." It was one of those PLO sessions where you literally lose every pot for like 4 hours culminating in Guy Laliberte busto'ing my account. I re-bought for like $1,774. It felt like Harrington10 was laughing at me. I remember yelling "Fuck" so loud I scared my neighbor and then for good measure I punched a hole in my laptop screen. This is partly why I no longer play poker and RaSZi is still around. He has a good attitude about it all.
I have also been watching a lot of Grubby. He was the King of Warcraft III when I was putting the most volume in. These guys have gotten really fucking good. I remember my goal was to go to South Korea. Then I heard that Tillerman wasn't going to play in WCG that year because he was grinding poker. I was like what? Really? Then I looked around the dorms and it seemed like I was surrounded by loads of poker crazed jabronis. Then I look into it more and ElkY is seemingly doing well and Phil Ivey is on the TV. I start winning in the local games and throw some money on Stars and Warcraft III and going to South Korea has vanished from my mind.
It's also crazy to me that someone like Infi can play Warcraft III as well as he does and only have lifetime tournament winnings of ~$400,000. RaSZi probably makes more than that in a year through Twitch streaming, PokerStars sponsorship, and poker winnings and he probably is unprofitable in most of the tougher tourneys these days. Then there is my hero Alberto who plays a Mario Kart 8 Deluxe course literally perfectly and only gets 2,000 views on YouTube.
Shit, I still have all these thoughts floating around. I have to get a walk in before the sun goes down though so maybe I will be back at some point. Tschüss.
Please check out my brand new game for iPhone/iPad! LINK
So yeah, I lost my mind and actually spent my time on this ridiculous idea.
When I was a kid many decades ago, some of the games I enjoyed the most were games like 'Heroes of Might & Magic II' and MTG which seemed like they wouldn't be as hard to make as other game genres.
Because of the nature of cards, I didn't need to have any animation skills to make a card game.
For example, here's my buddy Harry posing for the 'Majestic Aura' aura card in the game. I mostly used stock photography in the same way to get some 'art' for the cards. It's tough sometimes because you need to find something that's for sale and/or has explicitly abandoned its copyright claims, so you don't have an infinite choice of images to work with, but for your first game I think it's a fine option compared to pouring money into an art studio.
Next, I tried some existing games on the app store to see what I'm up against. This can be pretty disheartening because the popular games on the app store are made by actual companies (not by 1 dude in a basement), use powerful game engines like Unity to get a head start on the tech, and invest on getting great looking visuals with cool animations.
I knew that none of these I can possibly compete with - but I did notice some imperfections I thought I actually could improve.
Idea 1: screen sizing
A lot of the games I saw seemed to be designed for PC (where games can actually make money) and ported to iPhone later. Something that commonly bothered me was how tiny the assets looked on my screen, probably exacerbated by my terrible grandpa-level eyesight.
Plenty of games were 'borrowing', from the HOMM series like me, so they had 8x8 tile battle maps on the screen like in the classic games. I decided really early on that I wanted to have tiny maps.
The smallest battle maps in my game ended up having only 4x4 tiles, and the largest (which starts getting too small for the screen to my taste) are 7x7
Idea 2: complexity ramp
One leading game I tried had me start out with 4 different troop types, a hero, a city with 3 building types, and some resources to acquire even more stuff. It all looked great and pretty much like what I wanted to play, but introducing all that stuff at the same time made it feel like studying instead of playing.
On top of that, because of the complexity, they had me go through a tutorial where I didn't have any options (I just had to tap next-next-next to indicate I understood the lesson). This experience seemed to me to take away from their otherwise sweet game.
This gave me the idea to have the player start with 0 cards instead of some kind of 'beginner deck'. Even then, after asking some of my friends to test it, they commented that it became too complex too quickly, so I slowed it down even more.
Idea 3: a harsh game
So another game I really enjoyed as a kid was Diablo II. The game had a 'hardcore' mode where, if you die, you're actually dead and lose the countless hours 'invested' in your character.
Another thing about Diablo II was that even though the game itself was pretty difficult, the final end-boss, you know, the one that the game was named for, was a total pansy. What the hell? I always remember feeling disappointed when contemptuously wiping the floor with him. No such nonsense in my game! The hardest fight is the boss fight.
Idea 5: Secrets
Another easy thing I could do is add secrets everywhere. This doesn't take any great programming skill, so I thought it would be a great fit for my 1-man mission. I tried to mimic the classic 1993 game 'Doom', where players get rewarded for pushing walls randomly until they discover some secret bonus.
Idea 6: Boomer references
So if you read this far, you probably noticed that nostalgia was a pretty big motivational factor for me. During the design, at one point I noticed I had the cards 'Doom' and 'Earthquake'. If I just renamed the 2nd card to 'Quake', it'd become a reference that some boomer gamers out there would appreciate.
I did, and I started renaming cards everywhere in this manner. I even had a card named 'Craft Star' at one point, but I think that was taking it a little bit too far, so I ended up cutting it
I still have a lot of things to be disappointed about.
- I don't understand anything about how networking happens, so my game is single-player only. That's really a shame, because it would probably lend itself pretty well to multiplayer.
- Because I'm all alone, the content is pretty sparse (there are only 8 levels to go through for now).
- I'm good at AI, but I had so much trouble making the basic game and it took me so much longer than I expected that I didn't end up actually making a proper AI. The computer follows some basic rules while playing and that seems to give a reasonable enough result most of the time.
And I could list a lot of other disappointments. But at the end of day, I'm stoked because I actually released a game. That's pretty crazy!
I think about Collapse a lot. The new Republican prototype has a Law Degree from Harvard or Yale yet are capable of being any level of disingenuous if it will pump up their grift. USA Democracy is already dead. It died years ago if it was ever alive to begin with. Corrupt Corporate Oligarchy is all that remains.
I would like to buy a shit ton of acres in Upstate Canada with access to water but Wall Street and billionaires have already accomplished this. I would like to design and build a house I can live in. Yeah, it's a melting ice cube in the form of taxes and maintenance costs but it seems to be a decent enough (yet constantly decaying) store of value and protection against inflation and provides shelter.
I think a lot about investing in guns and ammo. I would love to have access to a 3d printer that could provide Shanzhai AK-47s, iPhones, and Model S electric vehicles. On the other hand acquiring even just one AR-14, whether that's through legal or illegal means, is a big responsibility. "Live by the gun, die by the gun" as they say.
I spent the holidays with my sister and brother-in-law in Radford, Massachusetts. It was peaceful and pleasant. I would take daily walks through a cemetery established in 1714. It was nice to walk through the farms and to behold the mountains and the sky. Many of the tombstones were crying out to be relevant. Many of the tombstones had weathered beyond recognition. Sadly or rationally the people who had died and were buried there are all worm food just the same. I looked at the trees, the mountains, and the Sun. Truly amazing. We are nothing but daisies doing our best to flourish before we wither away.
I hearkened back to one of the most terrifying nightmares of my life. I was in a Psych Ward psychotic to the gills. I could not tell dream from reality. I was in a space pod not too different from something like a SpaceX Dragon yet smaller. I guess something more like what Darth Vader ejected from his Tie Fighter yet I was many, many galaxies away. There was not much to this area in space. It was more or less nothing. Pitch black besides the lighting in the pod. I wondered how or if I could get back to civilization. Then my life flashed before my eyes as if I was approaching infinity. Like the movie Gravity except infinity away versus being within the same solar system. There was no hope. Still to this day I have no idea how long I was in that Psych Ward. To my mind it was eternity. I travelled down the 9 layers of Hell and back 999 times if not more. This is probably the fundamental reason I talk to a Psychiatrist and take my medications religiously.
Related to this was a time I dove deep into a float tank and felt like how I felt in the pod in infinite galaxies or universes away. I started hallucinating this image of what felt like a mixture of the grim reaper and some sort of knight or specter that I could summon in Magic the Gathering for maybe 2 colorless mana and 2 black mana. More serious than a Black Knight or Hypnotic Specter but not quite as terrifying as a Juzam Djinn or Satan himself. At first, I was freaking out a little bit like what the fuck is this? Then I continued to meditate and it just became an image and there was no longer any fear. It felt as if there was a heightened feeling of impermanence and as if I had had some sort of mini-Samsara experience. That is kind of a weird Buddhist way to explain it. Another way to explain it might be, "Whoa, I don't have to fear it. It is just there. That's kind of trippy." Then eventually it vanished and eventually the birds starting chirping to alert me that my float tank trip was coming to an end. I do not have to fear death but this consciousness will also likely come to an end. The limited in-scent is running out. The sand does not stop falling in the hourglass. Slowly, my bones get weaker, my teeth get more tea stained, as my face gets more wrinkled. We likely only get one life. Live it wisely.
Been putting poker on a break and spending more time playing/recording music
Feel free to check it out here, and if you like download/follow: bahrambient.bandcamp.com
If I'm playing poker in PA but still have residency in another state, which state do I pay taxes to? Technically, I'm just here temporarily. I don't have a bank account in PA or a license. Do I pay to my origin state or PA or am I responsible for both?
I know people travel to legalized states to play tournaments. If they win, do they pay taxes to the legalized state or just their home state?
Covid fuckin sux. I was in a car on Monday 14th 2020 with a friend for a minute, he hit my vaporizer....
that Night I went DOWN. mid poker session, i went to bed... woke up with the worst fever.... feeling weak, shaky.... kept waking up every few hours.... hallucinating.... seeing memories of what happened wherever i looked throughout the year...
This was a sweaty...... powerless shaky weird feeling I never felt like this in my life b4 and never experienced anything like it.
I'd say it was like a flu without the bathroom symptoms with the worst fever of your life..
Honestly feel I got lucky to overcome it like I did...... I've heard so much worse...
I got to the fridge and drank a 52 oz Tropicana, that really got things going in the right direction.
I didn't smoke any pot during that or eat or drink a thing, covid just put me down and unable to get up or do anything.....
So that went on 14th 15th and on the 16th I woke up happy feeling about 90%..
Today I feel normal.
What a fucking week.
bout 50 other things happened this week too, just explaining what covid is like.......
It worries me if covid gets any stronger it would take down a 40 yr old man quite ez.
I felt like i was 99%/1% the entire battle, my main worry after the experience is i feel if i was around 70, it may have been 60/40ish, and if I was 75-80... or older, def not a 50/50, 75 mb 40/60....
I knew it was going on, but stayed locked in all year, now that it hit me and im in lockdown..... Its fucked and honestly whatever you believe, protect yourselves and be patient.
looking for affordable online 6max coachingby asdf2000, November 09
I moved to PA and by coincidence I saw that I can play pokerstars in PA so I am giving it a go. I got my degree in computer science but I think I would still prefer to try to do this.
I am looking for coaching. Discerning in who I would accept coaching from.
My funds are extremely limited, but I am not asking to be staked or loaned or backed or anything. Some kind of scheme for payment would have to be developed, perhaps profit sharing? Anyone who knows me know I have a high level of potential. I am just looking to re-sharpen my game as quickly as possible. Also, I'd like to have someone skilled to check hands with and a solid strategy to be playing with, so that I have more confidence in my game and will be less effected by any runbad.
If this doesn't sound possible then I guess I will go it alone.
If any of you are a strongly winning 6max player and are interested, please let me know. I'd prefer to do this with an LPer or someone related to starcraft.
I YOLO'd about a year ago when I thought I was soon to be jobless and it worked out. Sun run for 7k in 3 weeks and was ready to stick with it, but my boss offered me a real salary so I tucked tail and took the safe route. Job's been great, but I've been planning my return this entire time. Part of this plan involved me buying a new car with autopilot capability so I could make the 500 mile round trip every single weekend with ease. Problem with this strat is that it's still a bit of a life grind hitting the highway after work at 7pm for 4 hours just so I can grind for 2 nights before I have to head back home and do it all over again the next week.
I also quickly realized that playing 2 nights on 5 nights off is really disruptive to your learning. I think I probably shoulda kept my old car and just taken a week off from work here or there to get in some solid sessions rather than sprinkling my time around like I have been. So I'm stuck wondering if I should sell the car and just go on a poker safari with all my vacation time and hope for the best, or if keeping an effective commute strategy is still +EV so that I can drive cross country to the card room whenever I want.
Thoughts?
Or ya know, lets learn PLO and play online. Truthfully I'm just really gunshy of NLHE online play. Never won at it, the action is too fast and the players are too good. I need that AK money when someone calls me with K6.
Playing on Pstars again for the first time in 10y!by Nitewin, October 08
I moved to see if I can make some money here. The game sure has changed quite a bit. Can LP help me get set up?
What are the essential playing / training software?
I used to have Pokertracker, HEM, and Ninjatools.
What's the best hand history tracker these days? What's good for shortcut keys? Anything else? Like PIO or some kind of training tool? I saw one where you could input PIO trees to simulate hand quizes.
It's time for me to buy a new car except I'm clueless about cars. I don't want a sports car I know most of you would shill me a BMW M5 or something like that. I mean I do, I just can't spend a 100k$
Currently split between buying a brand new one e.g. something like the new Octavia seems quite a reasonable price/quality-wise. Or going for a second-hand higher tier like a BMW from 2015.
The issue with secondhand cars is you don't know what you're getting, the sellers are scammers that rollback their kilometers and hide any red flags quite well combined with the fact that I'm clueless about cars I'm basically a fish sitting on a table with all nosebleed regs. The other disadvantage to secondhand cars is that you won't be taking advantage of all the support and maintenance that comes with a new car and if you're unlucky you could end up spending shittons in repairs.
I'm pretty much set on buying a new one cause it makes more sense from a financial standpoint - I won't have to pay in cash and could get a lease with < 0,5% interest leaving more cash on the side for me. The Octavia sounds like the best idea, but also looking into VWs e.g. Golf/T-Roc ... or Passat/Arteon (the issue is that will stretch my budget a lot and I won't be able to get many extras otherwise this is an obvious instant call the Arteon looks cool as fuck)
Anyway I know most of you are spending a decent amount of time around cars as a hobby so any information that would help me make a decision is appreciated.
P.S. I also just noticed that my previous blogpost was that I quit smoking ... kind of cool I didn't know almost 2 years have passed
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