Gun Control: Equating Guns and Cars

So the following image was shared by one of my friends on Facebook: 

This image's attempt to equate guns and cars is flawed on many levels. The main purpose, the safety advancements, and the licensing process of guns and cars are all vastly different.  This image does a better job of advocating for gun control than against it.

First of all, the sole purpose of a gun is to shoot things, threaten to shoot things, or be in a display case saying "this used to shoot things back in the day." The sole purpose of a car is not to smash into things. Cars are meant to get people quickly from point A to point B. Sure, guns are generally not purchased specifically to shoot another person. As a side note, they are purchased with this intent vastly more often than someone buys a car in order to smash it into someone else. Regardless, To say that the difference between shooting an animal or a target and shooting a person is equivalent to the difference between driving safely and crashing your car into another car is quite a stretch to say the least.

Secondly, the image compares drunk drivers to violent people who are presumably not drunk. If a police officer got drunk on the job and discharged his handgun and killed an innocent person, I doubt anyone would blame the gun. Even if we change it to "We don't blame cars for car accidents", it's still wrong because we DO blame cars for car accidents. That's why there are so many advancements in car safety each and every year. Car companies sometimes base their entire ads on how safe their cars are in various safety tests. When was the last time guns were made safer? Someone on Facebook mentioned mandatory child locks on guns which was passed in 1997 (Chicago Tribune Article). That was 16 years ago. This 2012 Slate article: (Technology to Make Guns Safer), which actually references the analogy between guns and cars as well, talks about new gun safety technologies including trigger sensing that can make a gun only fire when the owner is the one holding it. Gun manufacturers are very resistant to these safety measures. Why? Because, as mentioned in the article, "gun makers are immunized against lawsuits" related to the guns they make. Car manufacturers, on the other hand, are responsible for making cars safer. Gun manu-facturers should be responsible for making guns safer as well.

Finally, guns and cars are vastly different in how their use is controlled. To get a driver's license, one has to pass both written and field tests that show that they are capable of driving a car. They have to fill out numerous forms and submit an application for a driver's license. Then they have to register their car with the state and get a license plate for it. Also, they have to renew both the license plate and driver's license throughout their life. Additionally, if they want a license to drive, say, a motorcycle, they need to get a completely different permit to show that they are capable of operating that vehicle safely as well. Is the same true for guns? Not by a long shot (pun intended).  A bit of research (Gun laws in the US by state) shows that 36 of the 50 states do not require a permit for either long guns or handguns. Why is it easier to obtain a gun than it is to get a car? We should have a process similar to this: (California Firearms Permit Information) throughout the US so that people who own guns legally are fully capable of using that gun safely. Gun permits should apply only to a specific type of gun as different guns require different skills. Also, gun owners should be held responsible for keeping their guns out of the hands of children or other people without a permit, just like car owners are held responsible for making sure their car is used safely by others (Relevant Car Laws).

In summary, the US should treat guns and gun ownership closer to the way it treats cars and car ownership. I think the image at the beginning of this post may have been created by a supporter of gun control to see how many people against gun control would make his argument for him.

The Most Reckless Jeopardy Wager Ever

I am still tilted from what I just saw on today's finale of the teen tournament on Jeopardy.  So it was a two day total point final. Whoever gets 1st is guaranteed $75,000, 2nd gets $25,000 and 3rd gets $15,000.  If they happen to end with more than that they get their actual total instead.

Elise, the heroine of this story who might challenge Archie Karas in gamble, took a huge risk on Final Jeopardy on the first day (which I am ok with, though that was a bit reckless too) and ended with ~22,600; 2nd place had ~11,800; and 3rd place had 10,000.

Going into final jeopardy on the second day, Elise crushed everyone and had ~29,000; 2nd place had ~16,000; and 3rd place had ~12,500. Neither player could overtake Elise's two day total even if they wagered it all and got it right, so by wagering $0, Elise would guarantee herself $75,000. Instead, she made an INSANE wager of $28,000 and miraculously luckboxed her way into a correct answer. Unbelievable!

So when all was said and done she cashed for ~$79,600 (just $4,600 more than if she wagered $0). If she got the question wrong she would have been left with just ~$23,600. So in a sense she risked a little over $51,000 to win about $5,000! She was laying over 10:1 that she would get final jeopardy correct.  As if that wasn't crazy enough, unless her family is loaded, it is much much worse considering she should be risk averse concerning this amount of money.

I think it's most likely the case that she didn't understand the rules of the tournament. Wow is she lucky she got the answer correct!  A mistake like that for that much money might well have haunted her for the rest of her life.

Strange Dream Last Night

So the setting of the dream is, I assume, the Las Vegas airport, though it's not really recognizable in any way. There is apparently a big snowstorm or other cold weather event fast approaching so everybody is trying to get on the last flights out. I'm with a group of people that I know in this world but I don't recognize any of them from real life. Some booked flights on various airlines like Continental and others. My flight is the last one out on Las Vegas Air at 9:30 AM. All the other flights before and after this one on this airline were canceled.

Other airlines arrive and different friends of mine bid their farewells and leave. 9:30 comes and goes and still no sign of the last Las Vegas Air flight. I'm on a severe lack of sleep and am worried about whether the flight will ever come and if I should have booked a different airline. At around 12:00 I find myself walking down the aisle of an abandoned aircraft and sit next to a girl that I know in this world. We talk a bit about whether our flight will arrive or not. She seems wistfully optimistic about the whole situation and I can't figure out why.

Then, amazingly, I hear the telltale sound of the Las Vegas Air flight as it flies overhead and touches down. I am so relieved that it has finally arrived and I'll be able to get out just in time. We smile at each other and I stand up and begin to walk to the exit. It is then that I realize that other people are starting to board this plane! I walk up to them and I recognize some of them and one smiles at me and expresses his relief that we're finally going to fly out of here. I ask him why he's on this plane and he is confused and says, "because this is the Las Vegas Air flight of course!"

I am very confused at this point and tell my friend about how this is just an old abandoned aircraft. He laughs at me and thinks that I am joking. He tells me about how he heard the aircraft land and went to the gate specified and boarded the plane and that is how he's here. It is at that point that I look around and the plane doesn't look like an old aircraft anymore, it looks like the Las Vegas Air flight. I also notice that the girl that I was talking to has all her bags here but I left mine in the airport. I ask my friend to leave the plane with me to go get my bags, which will also give me some vague chance to "get on the right plane."

So we leave and go to where I left my bags. We talk more about this weird situation and my friend begins to get a bit worried that something is wrong. We find the bags and head back to the plane. I'm a little surprised when we board the plane from the outside instead of through a gate but my friend assures me that this is where we just left. The plane is now full as we walk down the aisle to our seats. My friend's seat is much further up the plane, so he sits down as we say a few final things about the situation. As I head further down the plane I say "I trust you." He looks a little unsure still and says "I guess the question is do I trust me?"

I make my way to my seat and put my bags away and sit down next to the girl I was talking to earlier and it feels like a huge weight has finally been lifted off me. I'm finally going to fly out of here and everything is going to be great. I've put the whole weirdness of the abandoned aircraft and such stuff out of my mind. Then I hear someone near me shout, "Oh my God, she's freezing her legs off!"

I snap awake.

Red Herring

I've come up with a new poker term: Red Herring

Consider the following hand:

You have AhQh on a board of JhTs3c and bet and your opponent shoves for not much more and you decide to call figuring you could have as many as 10 outs and probably at least 7. To your dismay he turns over 33 for a set leaving you with just 4 outs. Now, the turn is the 8h giving you a flush draw and a double-gutted straight draw so instead of 4 outs, you have 13 (3 non-heart Kings, 3 non-heart 9s, and 7 non-board-pairing hearts). Your situation has improved greatly! You eagarly await the river card while your opponent bemoans his bad luck. The river is the Kd giving you the nut straight and the win!

The 8h in that hand is the Red Herring. It is a card (or cards in the case of a Red Herring flop) that gives someone who is way behind (generally drawing to 4-5 outs or less) many more ways to win the pot. In the end, the Red Herring is just a distraction from the real way the player wins the hand as the river is a card that completes one of the original 4-5 outs that the player needed.

Here's an example I witnessed myself: Two players in a tournament got it all in preflop. One turned over ThTd and the other proudly showed KdKc. The flop was a somewhat uneventful 875 with two hearts, though it did give the TT a lot of backdoor possibilities. The turn was an amazing 6h giving the TT a flush draw, a gut-shot to win (a nine), and a gut-shot to tie (a four) in addition to his two outs to a ten. The brutal river card was the Tc giving the TT a set and the win and making the 6h on the turn just a Red Herring.

Watch out for good examples of Red Herrings in your own poker games and spread the term!

Much Needed Update

I've finally decided to sit myself down and write another blog entry.

First of all, we've made it to Las Vegas. I had planned on writing up a detailed report on our drive from Seattle to here, and I still might at some point, but for now I'll just say that it was quite an adventure.

It's been about a month since we first arrived at our new home and started unpacking the U-Haul. Sadly, there are still boxes strewn around that have yet to be fully unpacked. Though I suppose that is not that surprising since I have never really had a move where I've unpacked everything. In fact, some of the boxes I packed for this move contained smaller boxes with stuff from a previous move. It's not my fault though as I think it runs in my genes.

Anyway, as for poker, I've been playing a lot of $100 to $500 buy-in tournaments and finally had my first decent sized cash. It was in a $500+$50 weekly tournament at The Venetian which ended with an 8-way chop for ~$5,000 each.

Yes, you read that right, an 8-way chop. Honestly, if someone else told me that they were involved in an 8-way chop I would probably laugh at them. Chops with this many people generally come about because the players think "there's no skill left with the blinds so high." While this is true to some extent, I think that in general, people underestimate the skill edge a good player has even in high blind situations. Bad players fold way too much in these spots. They blind themselves down under 5 BBs waiting for a big hand that might never come. And then, when they finally shove their micro-stack in, the raise is so small that the other players are forced to call and they have to hope to double/triple up just to get back to being a small stack. A good player knows that they have to look for spots to shove any two cards to make sure that they don't get too short stacked enough to have any chance of stealing the blinds.

That being said, a chop is almost always good for the shortest stack, which I happened to be after losing a coin flip with the former shortest stack and with the blinds going up I was going to be near that 5BB mark where I was going to have to shove any two. So when someone else asked what the amount of an 8-way chop would be I made sure to voice my support for such a deal! In the end, the other two short stacks and I gave the three big stacks a little extra from our share to get them to accept the deal. I'm definitely happy with the result. It is my 2nd largest profit from a tournament next to the Pendleton HORSE tournament last fall. It would have been nice to win the $14,800 for first place as I was a slight chip leader going into the final table, but considering how bad things were going for me, I feel like I was destined to go out 8th and get just $1,700.

Other than tournaments, I've played a few sessions of 2/5 with moderate success. The games are generally good at these levels as even the "regulars" have leaks. I've been considering taking some small shots at the 5/10 game at the Venetian but have yet to go for it. It's probably not more profitable than 2/5 anyway.

One semi-interesting celebrity moment so far: I watched Phil Ivey shoot craps at the Venetian a few days ago. He was betting $10,000 on the pass line, taking max odds, and putting out as many come bets as possible. It was quite amazing to see him throwing around the $25k chips like they were nothing. While I watched he ran really bad and was down over $500,000! I didn't stay long enough to see if he made it back or lost even more, but it definitely made my $1,000 wins or losses at the craps table feel mighty insignificant.

That's it for now, though I do want to start posting more regularly and may try to set aside some time each week to make a post.

Things to do with $5 in EV

This post is a detailed list of the amount of bets that can be made in a casino that result in just -$5.00 in expectation in the long run (If you had 100 such sessions, you would probably lose about $500). The point of this post is to show which games and bets are ridiculously bad value and which ones are reasonable in moderation. With the addition of comps and other rewards given by the casino, some of these bets might be pretty close to break even and are well worth it for the entertainment value (assuming you enjoy playing these games) as long as they are controlled and unstressed.

The reason casinos make as much as they do is because people (re: like me at various times in '06 and '07) don't control themselves, get overstressed, chase losses, bet the hard ways etc.

• Make 70 $5 bets ($350 total) on the pass/come line in Craps (the "odds" bets are break even).

In practice, by taking a pass line and a max of 2 come points, this takes about an hour (each 2, 3, 7, 11, or 12 counts as one bet).

• Make $45 worth of bets on the Hard 4/10 or $55 worth on the Hard 6/8 in Craps.

This shows how terrible hard ways bets are.

• Make ~$600 in Blackjack bets.

This obviously varies based on the rules at the casino and if you can count cards or not.

• Make $95 in bets at an American Roulette table.

American Roulette has a 0 and 00 where European Roulette only has 0 and also you only lose 50% of 1:1 bets when it hits 0. Contrast this with $370 in European Roulette bets.

• Make $470 in bets on the Banker or $403 in bets on the Player in Baccarat.

Additionally you could make $217 in total bets on each. Betting on a tie is terrible value.

Rob's '09 Goals and Resolutions

1. Make over $60,000 playing poker.

2. Have a $10,000+ cash in a poker tournament.

3. Take a round break at least once every three hours in cash games for introspection and reevaluation and decide whether or not to continue playing.

4. Spend no more than $10 a week in EV at table games.

5. Never sit at a limit above my bankroll unless I am staked or have the proper amount of surplus bankroll to take a shot.

6. Exercise (Tennis, Ultimate, Golf, Gym, etc.) at least once a week for at least an hour.

7. Do my morning routine (15's, short run, breakfast) at least 5 times a week.