The new book is now available! I got my copies tonight. Amazon and Conjelco should have it very, very soon.



Table of Contents:

Part 1:
Basics
Two Games
Every Hand Tells a Story
Playing Styles
Tactical Notions

Part 2:
Introduction to Bet Sizing
Bet Sizing on the River
Bet Sizing on the Turn
Bet Sizing on the Flop
Bet Sizing: Pre-Flop

Part 3:
General Opponents
Small Ball Tactics
Details
Putting It All Together

9:00am. I worked late last night, so I'm starting the day late. I walk into my office and....the light goes out. The computer's out, too, so it's a power failure (the UPS shuts the computer down, so no damage). I call SCE and report the outage.

9:25am. I call the SCE trouble line, and hear the following message. "The power is out in your area for routine maintenance. It will be restored at 5:00pm." It's tax season. There was no notice and you turned my power off. You bleeping bleepers.

9:30am. I call SCE Customer Service, to register my disgust. I want the rep to make sure to note that I did not receive a postcard, a phone call, or any other notification. I'm sure the CS Rep understood my point, but his comment, "Well, you should have received a phone call or a postcard," fell on deaf ears (at least one).

9:40am. I head to a client for two hours of work that I was supposed to do tomorrow. It's stretches to 2.75hours, and I'm heading home. At least it's billable.

12:25pm. Still no power. I have a protein bar for lunch; I don't want to open my refrigerator if the power is going to be out for 4.5 more hours.

12:45pm. I'm up to date on my filing. I can't print returns. I can't do a thing. I decide to go to the gym and work off some steam.

2:45pm. Heading home from the gym, I return scottro's call and discover that a minor book issue still rages. Well, maybe it will get resolved tomorrow.

3:00pm. Thankfully, the power is on when I get home. I write a letter to the President of Edison International (parent company of SCE). I plan on disputing 1/30th of my monthly service charge with the CPUC. It's the principle of the matter.

9:45pm. I take my first break of the workday--and will probably stop working soon. I'm getting tired, and I'm working on an old return. It will be here tomorrow.

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Why You Lose at Poker

Yes, that's the link to our second book. When there's a cover, I'll replace the link with the cover link.

Last night, the orange cones were still blocking my driveway. This morning, when I got up at my usual, inane hour, no cones! Woohoo! I can now park in my garage.

However, when the pavers replaced the curb in front of my house, they damaged the brick walkway by my mailbox. I've let the management association know; they've already called back (very fast service) and have let the paving company know. It doesn't like a major repair job, and it will be their problem, not mine.

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I was online, checking my mail, and getting ready to email scottro an excerpt from book2 for an article in Intelligent Gambler (ConJelCo's free publication spotlighting their books) when my attempt to connect to a website failed. I then realized it was 7:45, and I had promised to call a client about his taxes. I pick up my phone and get...

Nothing.

I call him on my cellphone, and then call my phone company/cable company. I get my phone service from Cox, and have a cable modem. Cox has had great service, but it appears something's out between me and Cox. It's a forty-minute call, as I give the same information to the phone department (they try dialing my home and get nothing, but will not confirm there's an outage -- 30 minutes with them) and the ISP (high speed cable) department. The ISP department, in five minutes, confirms there's an outage, says they even think they know where it is, and gets all the needed info. By 8:40am the service is back up. I'm supposed to get a call from them confirming this, and I probably will -- this afternoon.

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One of my favorite lines has to do with the light at the end of the tunnel.

You're walking down a dark, empty tunnel. Suddenly, off in the distance, you see a light. As you continue to walk the light gets brighter and brighter. Is the light (a) the end of the tunnel (sunlight), (b) a bank of fluorescent lights, or (c) the light on the engine of the oncoming train about to run you over?

In our case (Scottro and I) it's (a). Our editor (we can't name mickdog publicly, but he's done a great job) sent us the last chapter--the longest in book2--and I've gone through it once. I'm going to be doing the second read-through tonight, and then the book is off to Chuck. We do have to go through the pdf (galley); I'd guess that's in about 2-3 weeks. I'll stick by my publication estimate of June 1, though it might be two or so weeks sooner.

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There's a stack of tax returns by my feet, just waiting to be put in envelopes. So off to work I go....

I remember a cartoon, probably a Herman (Jim Unger), where a guy is holding up a sign saying, "The End Is Near." Another person is frowning at it, but an alien says to him, "My money's on him," and points to the guy with the sign.

That's how I feel tonight.

The good news -- and it's really, really, good -- is that the body of our book is done. We have some minor editing changes to do, which scottro and I will get done this weekend. We have two more chapters to write (the introduction and the final chapter). We have the prefatory material and the appendices to complete. And that's it. We've just promised Chuck that the book will be in his hands next Friday. So we're committed, in more ways than one....

So between tax work, and writing, there goes the weekend....

Yesterday was a day I dreaded -- getting my parents a new computer. Their demands were:
- Had to run MS Word 97;
- Had to work without problems;
- Had to use the latest and greatest specialized real estate software;
- Had to be inexpensive.

We ended up buying an hp at BestBuy. Then the fun began: transferring the files from the old computer to the new. I have a transfer program, but it wouldn't work on their old computer (it was corrupted, had ME as its' OS, and was generally horrible). So we zipped their working files (mostly MS word stuff), and unzipped them on the hp. That worked.

Then I spent 2.5 hours updating the new computer: security updates (thank you, MS), deleting trash, etc.

Then the coup de grace: adding a webcam. You can see the result if you look at the picture. Yes, that's me taken 3 hours ago in Tarzana. Everything worked. Hopefully, it will stay that way for the next 10 weeks (tax season).

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Today is a very boring day: writing, writing, and more writing. It must get done.