When I read this news report, I thought back to SouthPark and this cute song

Urgh, finally gave in to the temptation to start watching the new Melrose Place and the pilot episode immediately hooked me with murder, prostitution, creepy characters like Violet, basically everything that American drama serials are so good at.  It reminded me again why I cannot stand Korean dramas and their slow buildup haha.  They did throw a touching scene in the pilot episode when the film-maker impressed his fiancee about his decision to turn down the sleaze offer of film-making. 

This is definitely the more matured drama serial compared to 90210, time to sit back and enjoy the plot development.

It is coming to a year since I got back to the dating market and, thank God, I have to say it has been a good mixture of hits and misses.  Of course, being the economist that I am, it is always in my nature to reflect on my experiences from the econs perspective so here is a simple summary.

Dating market suffers from lack of double coincidence of wants

The dating market is inefficient, and the main reason is because of the need for double coincidence of wants.  In any real life markets, we solve such a need with money.  If I want food and I do not want to grow some using my own effort, I have to find a farmer who happens to have a need for some economic lessons.  The problem is, there is almost zero chance of me finding a farmer in Singapore, what's more finding one with a need for economics education.

Thus, the market solves this by a complex system of trade and connections such that, somehow, by earning my wages teaching economics, I am magically connected to a rice farmer in Thailand whom, because of my willingness to offer money, he is also willing to send some of the rice to me.  This exchange can come about even if we have different religions, and even if we might hate each other if we ever were to meet.  This video by the late Milton Friedman has always left its mark on my appreciation of what markets can do.



However, we can see that the dating market suffers from the problem of not having a medium of exchange like money.  If X likes Y but Y likes Z, Z likes A, and A likes X, where obviously X and Z are guys and Y and A are girls, we can clearly see a problem.  X cannot hang around with A and get some kind of credit that he then could use to persuade Y to spend time with him.

When I mention this to another male friend in economics, he pointed out that dating market is slightly more complex in that you must split the benefits of having a date into separate components.  For example, if it is sex that you want, then there is clearly a market where you can use a medium of exchange.  For example, I do not need to find a prostitute with the need for economics lessons but simply use cash to facilitate the transaction.  She will accept it since she can then use the cash to get what she really wants.

Of course, we want the companionship, and sometimes the ability to jointly produce an offspring and take care of that offspring together, and these are some of the many things that there is no medium of exchange that could help you.  That is why the dating market is inefficient.

Getting a car allows you to polarize a girl's rejection range

This is one reflection that I could only have gotten after being exposed to poker.  To do well in poker, we always put people on a range of hands and act according to that range. 

That is the main reason why, while you can raise with AQ offsuit in middle position when everyone folded to you, you should probably fold the same hand at the same position if an UTG player raise and another person in early position reraise the UTG raiser. 

The reason is because, facing a raise and reraise when you are in middle position, you are putting at least one of them with hands like AK or KK/AA/QQ and, with your AQ, there is hardly any flop that will come that will make you confident that you have the best hand, even with a flop like Q x x.  By folding AQo, such a pretty hand, we are acting accordingly to a range of hands we are putting our opponents on.

Another example, this recent hand I just played on Full Tilt.

Full Tilt No-Limit Hold'em, $0.05 BB (9 handed) - Full-Tilt Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com

saw flop | saw showdown

MP1 ($3.07)
MP2 ($9.93)
MP3 ($5)
CO ($5.10)
Button ($13.46)
SB ($8.20)
BB ($2.50)
Hero (UTG) ($4.84)
UTG+1 ($24.39)

Preflop: Hero is UTG with 3, 3
Hero bets $0.17, 6 folds, SB calls $0.15, 1 fold

Flop: ($0.39) Q, 10, 3 (2 players)
SB checks, Hero bets $0.25, SB calls $0.25

I flopped a set but there is a possible flush draw and when he called my 2/3 pot continuation bet, his hand range at that point clearly includes a flush draw. 

Turn: ($0.89) A (2 players)
SB checks, Hero bets $0.55, SB calls $0.55

The ace of hearts hits the turn, not a good card for me, my set had an obvious problem of being 2nd best hand. Now this situation is almost exactly like the opening of Poker After Dark. After he checked, I decided to fire a second barrel of slightly more than half the pot to see where I was at and also to make it a mistake for him to chase the flush if he had a solitary heart card. If this villian were to do a big raise just like what Doyle did to Ferguson in that situation, alarm bells would definitely go off, but whew, he just called! The real game had not begun for me yet.

River: ($1.99) 8 (2 players)
SB checks, Hero bets $0.80, SB calls $0.80

But, to illustrate the benefits of playing in position, when the river card was a blank and he checked the river, I knew with almost 90% certainty that he could not have the flush since he would have led the betting if that was the case (Another reason why the implied odds of chasing a flush is actually quite low when you are oop). Thus, when he checked the river, he has effectively polarized his hand to hands that my set can beat.

Total pot: $3.59 | Rake: $0.23

Results:
SB had 10, A (two pair, Aces and tens).
Hero had 3, 3 (three of a kind, threes).
Outcome: Hero won $3.36

A beginning poker player could have played it safe and checked behind the river but I will not improve on my poker skills if I continue to be so risk averse and not trust my hand reading abilities. So, acting accordingly to the range I put him on, I made a value bet on the river with my unimproved set and he called, revealing he caught 2 pair on the turn flush card and thus, I made some more money.

Okay, back to the dating market, what am I trying to say?  I am sure guys, at one time or another, had this fleeting thought that it is easier to get dates when you are rich or/and have a car.  I have realized, after being given some wierd rejection lines by girls that I tried to follow up after the initial introduction, the kind of lines that goes, "Are u free on tuesday?" with a "No I am not free (but never give alternative dates when you are free)".

When you keep getting rejection lines like those, a guy must put the girl on a rejection range, consisting of the possible reasons behind the rejection.  For example, a typical rejection range could be something like 20% chance is that she is really not free but would still like to go on a date with me,  20% chance she is rejecting me because of my looks, 20% chance she is rejecting me because my character is not her type, another 20% chance she is rejecting me because I don't have a car, and so on and so forth.  Of course, if we think we are quite good looking, we will downgrade the percentage for rejection based on looks to say 5% and raise the other percentages accordingly. 

The point is, we do not like to put the girl on too wide a rejection range.  Ideally the range should be polarized, either she is really not free or she wants me out of her life because I am deemed unsuitable. Polarized means only 2 possible reasons, no more no less. For example, if we can say confidently that, 20% chance she is rejecting because she is not free and thus I can try asking her out again, 80% chance she is rejecting me because she does not want to see me again and hence I should move on, the happier we are.  Conversely, the more possible reasons there can be, the more "stressful" it can be in coming to the correct conclusion on why she is not accepting your date invitations.

Now, that shows the main benefit of getting a car, in my opinion.  Once you have one, it may not be sufficient to guarantee that you will get the girl of your dreams, but the main benefit is that, when the girl rejects you, you can safely rule out the possibility of being rejected because you do not have a car as one of the reasons.  In poker terms, you have polarized her rejection range, either she likes you or she does not, making it easier for you to come up with correct interpretation.

In fact, as I have realized for myself when I was living in the US, the inability to polarize a range is one of the problems of racism.  The entire article on the Invisible Knapsack of white privileges is based on the same principle of polarization.  When you are a member of the majority race, the main benefit is not necessarily that people will be nice towards you, but you will know that, if people are nasty towards you, you can safely rule out race as a reason and that is the main discomfort that minorities feel, "Was he rude to me because he is rude in general or is it due to my race?"

Conclusion

These two thoughts summed up my first few reflections back to the dating market.  I await more such reflections in the future hehe.

After watching the entire season 7 of Charmed, I have to say its the best season of Charmed ever for me.  The one theme that really intrigued me was the "Utopia" theme, and I am certainly glad the writer was allowed to have so many of the early episodes devoted to this particular theme. Other than the philosophical lessons to be learnt from this theme, I also felt that the avatars are a very cool group of beings and their leader especially displayed such a great level of patience.

This entire Utopia theme finally concluded at episode 13. In this epsiode, Leo and the Halliwell sisters finally realized the price they had to pay for Utopia, that anyone who threatens the omnipresent peace and non-conflict world would have to be forcefully removed.  According to the leader of the Avatars, it is regrettable that the needs of one must be sacrificed for the good of many but he is very sure that far fewer people die in their Utopia than in the regular world of good and evil. When I heard that, I suddenly saw the link to Singapore.

Singapore is indeed an Utopia in every sense of the word.  Like what was just said in the National Day rally speech, Singaporeans are not aware of all the hidden conflicts of race and religion.  We must always be hard at work to ensure that those who bring conflict to this Utopia must be punished.  We have witnessed for the last few years how, even in the Internet, any Singaporean who makes any comments that have the potential to stir racial and religious conflict are harshly dealt with.

Wow, I am indeed thankful to be living in this Utopia that is Singapore.  Without knowing why, everything in Singapore is working so well.  I need to no longer worry about evil, security and conflict.  Maybe God should have done the same thing for Adam.  I mean, why put the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in the Garden of Eden?  Why not just remove that tree completely?  Wouldn't that achieve the same purpose for all of us?

Of course, there is a slight problem with this Utopia, no one seems patriotic about being a Singaporean.  No one seems to be saying the pledge or singing our national anthem with any real passion.  Why are Singaporeans so ungrateful for living in this Utopia?

In its usual style, Southpark shows us why "protesting against your govt" cannot and should not be seen as being unpatriotic.  How many times we have heard the argument, "If you don't like it here, why don't you leave instead of protesting or complaining?"

I now learn that those pro-establishment types need the anti-establishment type, to make everyone else outside of Singapore blame the PAP rather than Singaporeans, for any decisions we make.

And those anti ones also need the pro ones, so that Singapore will remain strong and a kickass country. Like Eric Cartman would say, "Its like having your cake and eating it at the same time!" =)

Was watching the old 90210 season 2, "The next 50 years", and boy that episode really brought back many memories.  I was watching this episode during my NUS days and it was really a very cool theme in it.  Since season 1, David Silver and Scott were 2 geeks trying to fit into the "cool" gang of Brenda, Brandon, Dylan, Steve, and Kelly.  David was doing his utmost to make him as cool as possible for their acceptance but Scott was pretty comfortable remaining a geek.  We can all see David being pretty embarassed to be seen with Scott, even though they were the best of friends in middle school.

After Scott killed himself accidentally with a gun, everyone just assumed that David will be very sad because they all thought the 2 of them were the best of friends.  Only David knew the truth and he finally exploded to Brandon in the confession that everyone heard.  That outburst was the key to that episode for me.

Now, most of us could understand how David felt.  When we were younger, we all felt we had to talk and act in a certain way to be cool and to fit in.  That was the beauty of the old 90210 up until season 4 when every episode was dealing with a certain theme that we could identify and relate to.  After season 4, it was just soap opera after soap opera and it killed off some of the magic hehe.

No doubt one of the interesting outcomes from the AWARE saga is that parents all over in Singapore are in uproar over how their kids in schools are being taught homosexuality as an alternative lifestyle and that anal sex is not morally wrong. For example, the many comments in this blog really made me amused.  It immediately brought into mind the Southpark musical "Bigger Longer Uncut", the scene when parents discover that their kids are learning swear words, choose to blame Canada instead of themselves, using a hilarious version of Canada's own national anthem, "Oh Canada".  I thought the best part of the lyrics was the following,

"We must blame them and cause a fuss
Before somebody thinks of blaming uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuus!!!!"

Just subsitute the word Canada for Aware and you get the gizz of what is going on hehe.

Ed Miller has a short extract from his forthcoming ebook on poker that teaches the art of 3-betting.  In poker, a preflop 3 bet stands for a reraise before the flop.  Once you are buying in for the full 100BB, you should definitely add 3-betting into your repotire of poker skills. 

So far, from my playing experience in 25nl and below at Full Tilt, Pokerstars, Cake as well as in the iPoker network, most standard tight players 3-betting range is QQ+ and AK.  You rarely see players 3 betting light at those levels, which makes it quite easy to play against them postflop.

As most tight beginning players realize during their learning process, me included, you should always raise preflop whenever you are the first to come in.  That is called 2-betting.  Now, most players, if they read enough poker books and articles on how to play poker, will know that, if a player opens with a 2-bet UTG, the hand range is very likely to be 22+, AK and AQs.  But at the cutoff and the button, when everyone folds to you, a standard tight aggressive player will 2-bet with a range much wider than that, the range at the cutoff and the button will typically also include any ace, KQ, KJ, 10J, and almost any connectors, suited or offsuit.  The main objective in 2 betting is to steal the blinds.

Now, if you are in the small or the big blind facing such an attempt to steal, what should you do?  Most books will say that the worse thing you can do is to call the raise because what you are doing is returning the initiative back to the stealer, who is likely to do a continuation bet on the flop and you would not know how to respond.  For example, here is what aejones from 2+2 would say to a player who keeps calling a 2-bet from either the small or big blind:

"You are too passive preflop.. You are most DEFINITELY calling too much out of the blinds... It's hard to play KTs or A5s or even KQo from out of position against a decent player. Essentially, you should probably be 3-betting more from the blinds to a CO or button open. First, their hands don't have to be that strong. Second, if they do call, your advantage to bet first on the flop is HUGE... basically, you're using the reverse implied odds of their hand against them... and that's huge. It doesn't matter how often you hit the flop, it's how often they miss.. Variance will certainly go up, but by 3-betting more you're definitely going to up your winrate (if you do it in the right places, when the y can open light, and with the right hands, preferrably nondominated hands that tend to be the best hand preflop, or suited connectors to mix things up)."

Thus, a good strategy at the blinds facing such a steal is simple, "either 3-bet the 2-better, or fold".  Ed Miller expands on this standard advice with some more tips that make full use of the information poker tracker would give you, and I should start applying these once I move over to Full Tilt where many players are playing simple TAG games hehe.
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