Henry As Bruiser

The boy remains in the 90's, percentile wise, for both height and weight. Power forward, I guess?

Big news is that he has his own bed now, and he is sleeping in the other room. It's only been a few nights but so far he's sleeping hard for, like, at least seven hours. That changes things around here a lot. We have some evening time to just chill out, and we have our bedroom back to ourselves. I feel like a new man.

Fallegro

Before the gig yesterday Trevor and I stopped in at this wine bar that is owned/operated by a coulpe who are supporters of the band. Turns out they have a young son as well (middle name Henry), so that's pretty much all we talked about.

We let Brett choose what to pour us (you wanna buy us a glass, you can pick the bottle) and I really loved what he chose. The bottle is called Fallegro, and it's made by an Italian winemaker named Gagliardo. I *think* he said the varietal was favorita, but I could be misremembering. It was delicious, kinda like a cross between a pinot and a riesling. But, you know, really good. Plus the bottle looked nice, so Brett sold me a couple for his cost (I'm only allowed to bring two back across the border without paying duty).

Of course, I can't really say it was my first drink of the evening, it might have tasted different if it was. I plan on finding out at home this week.

Tie-Die Everything

Open the door to my palacial suite here at the Royal Motor Inn in Moscow, Idaho, and you can see the Tie-Dye Everything store. That place has been there as long as we have been coming to Moscow. I do not understand how an exclusively tie-dye store can survive in a small town (or, really, anywhere). So without any knowledge whatsoever of its situation, I have to say I'm impressed that the Tie-Dye Everything store continues to exist.

Kudos, Tie-Dye Everything store, kudos! (Unless you are just a front for something illicit, in which case, F'shame, Tie-Dye Everything Store, f'shame).

Preview Review V

Grandma had Henry under control, so Rachel & I escaped to the motion picture's the other night. The feature presentation was "Youth In Revolt", the new Michael Cera offering. It was pretty much exactly what I expected, which almost never happens. In a good way, mainly. Nothing amazing, but pretty thoroughly amusing.

My favorite scene was when he's at this French Immersion school, and he keeps asking people questions, but they won't speak to him in English. And he says, "Are you fucking serious?" It's not the greatest line ever, but the delivery kicks ass and I laughed for about the next five minutes.

You know, people talk a lot about whether Michael Cera will last, if he'll be able to develop some range. And I understand that concern, and why lots of people think he won't be able to, that he'll go the way of Jon Heder soon enough. This movie doesn't really offer all that much to show he'll be able to break out, but he has made pretty much every movie he's been in funnier than it really should have been. So for now I'm giving him the benefit of the doubt.

Zach whatever his name is, from The Hangover, definitely showed some range. First time I've seen him not play the sort of lovable weirdo/goofball. He was just kind of a a prick in this one.

Anyway, that was just the main feature. Of course, the main reason you go to the movies is for the previews. So without further ado, here you have the fifth installment of the Preview Review. There's Upside Score (US), which is how good the movie looks like it might be, and Secret Score (SS), which is how much the preview managed to keep some small amount of plot hidden. I think this is the worst selection of trailers I've seen since I started The Preview Review. Sorry I don't have better news.

BOUNTY HUNTER -- the money scene in the trailer is when Jennifer Aniston punches Gerard Butler in the groin. I shit you not. US 1.5. Gets a half point for using "Hang Fire" as the background music. SS 4.

SHE'S OUT OF MY LEAGUE -- basically all the guys who were in Knocked Up get a chance to be the lead in at least one movie. This looks like the weakest one so far. Kind of looks like a John Hughes movie, and there's a reason they stopped making those. Well, I guess partly because he's dead. But even before that, I mean that style of movie. Done like dinner. US 2. SS 5.

COP OUT -- What fucking year is this? Black cop white cop piss off the police captain but solve the case while dispensing a mix of hilarious hijinx and high-paced action. The police captain in this one actually says, and I wrote it down, "There's a right way to do police work, then there's the way you do it." That's a line. Not just a throwaway line in this piece of shit-looking movie. It actually made it into the preview. Now, there is a chance that the whole thing's a level, it's all a send-up of 80's style buddy cop movies. In which case, I guess it should be judged differently. I don't think so, but here's hoping. US 2. Only avoids a 1 because Tracy Jordan's pretty funny in a scene where he refuses to say "who's there" after Seann William Scott's "knock knock". SS 4.

CLASH OF THE TITANS -- I. Could. Not. Care. Less. US n/a (on account of I just don't care). SS n/a (on account of I just don't care).

DEAR JOHN -- okay, I admit this one looks not bad as far as 'movies for girls' go. Trailer does a good job of giving you the low-down without spoiling too much (although maybe not that much happens). US 5. SS 7.

THE SCARIES -- standard horror movie stuff. maybe it's Zombies, I'm not sure. US 3. If you like scary movies it probably deserves higher than that. SS 4. People die, mainly in gruesome fashion.

All-In EV and The Bunching Effect

Let's just say (as an example) that in blind battles, or button vs blind battles, in hands where it gets to the button or the blinds unopened, you'll pretty much always get it in with AT+, maybe A7s+. And let's say your buddy will go with only his best Aces but will get it in with any pocket pair. You are going to run better, over the long run, in all-in EV than your buddy.

Because, on average, there will have been more opens from earlier positions by people with aces in their hands than any other card. So in this situation, where no one has opened yet, you'll have more than your share of aces left in the deck, and he'll have less than his share of cards to make sets.

Let's say AJo v 77, AIPF. AJo has 45.352% equity (a bit lower than people tend to think -- if you switch it to suited it gets up to about 48%).

Now, if we remove one of the two remaining sevens in the deck, AJo climbs all the way up to 50.04%. That's a pretty big difference, considering we're not really thinking about avoiding a set when those cards get turned over.

Now, if it's a fullring game and seven players folded before the action started, and none of them had an Ace? With 14 non-Ace cards removed, the AJ0 gets a slightly bigger bump, up about five points to 50.685%. If we make one of those removed cards a seven, it surges all the way to a 57.166% favorite.

So, just based on card removal, the hand can pick up about 12% in equity. Meanwhile, all-in EV continues to calculate your equity in the pot based on all cards being available. So, over not much time at all, the person with AJo will begin to seem luckier than the person with 77, as he drags a higher percentage of pots than the (thought to be infallible) EV calculator predicts he will.

Of course this has all been extreme. I didn't take out any J's, either, which is just basically wrong. And there will sometimes be Aces in the muck, just like often there won't be any 7's there. So the actual impact of card removal is obviously far less than 12%. But it's definitely far greater than 0%, too. Which means a player's style can affect how well they run in all-in EV (as calculated by HEM, or similar programs).

I have no idea if in reality there would be many instances where a player's style deviates from averages enough to start having card removal really affect how he runs in a meaningful way, but I now know that, theoretically at least, it's possible.

The Dansey Dream

When I was about 10 or 11 my parents bought this property on Dansey Avenue in Coquitlam and built a big house there. We only lived there a year or so but I have some really distinct memories from that time.

One time my friend James Baldwin came over and he said, 'this place is massive, do you have a maid to clean it up?' But I thought he said 'do you have it made to clean it up?' which made no sense so I said, 'uh, sort of'. And he said, 'oh, like once a week or something?' Which gave me context to understand what he had said. I was too embarrassed to backtrack, so I just said, 'yeah'. We didn't have a maid. I'm sure it's not the first lie I ever told but it's the first one I can remember.

One time my friend Craig Bateman came over for a sleepover, and we were determined to stay up all night no matter what. I remember kicking the soccer ball against the brick half wall by the garage, really late. And I remember waking up sprawled out on the stairs. Why would I pass out on the stairs?

One time I came home from Lord Baden Powell Elementary to make myself lunch, tomato soup, and I left the stove on with the pot on the stove. I can vividly remember how awful it smelled when I got home. I picked the pot up and the whole bottom of it just disintegrated. I was stressed out.

One time my brother and I had a bunch of holly that grew on this other property my parents owned, and we put it in lunch bags and went door to door and sold it. It was Christmas time. My brother would have been like five. I can remember it was a quarter a bag and sales were brisk.

One time I had to go to the doctor and have my toe nail pulled off because I had an ingrown toenail and that's the best they could do for it, so I got to stay home for a couple days after that and my parents got me PacMan for Atari.

One time I cried like a baby up in the laundry room that overlooked the backyard when people came to pick up our dog, Shondi, who we couldn't keep cause the yard wasn't big enough for her (that was the line anyway). The lady who bought the dog came and tried to cheer me up but mainly she just embarrassed me. Ten year old boys are young enough to sob over losing their dogs, but old enough to not want strange ladies to see them doing it.

The reason all this came up is lately I've been thinking about this recurring dream I used to have based around that house. I don't know when I had it last, it's been a long, long time, but it persisted for years after we had moved. The living room was two stories high, and was overlooked by the hallway to the bedrooms on the second floor. There was a railing to keep you from tumbling to your death. And when the house was being built we would go check on the progress, and the railing wasn't there yet, so we were made aware of the extreme caution required if traversing that hallway.

Anyway, in the dream my mom falls to her death and we're all there. My brother stands there, shocked, like he can't fathom what has happened. My sister is hysterical. My dad grabs my sister and says, 'don't be such a baby'. Every time. Every time I had the dream, that's what he said.