Singapore, economics and pop culture

Today's sermon on Galatians chapter 3

2009-12-13T15:43:34Z

¹You foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you? Before your very eyes Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed as crucified. ²I would like to learn just one thing from you: Did you receive the Spirit by observing the law, or by believing what you heard? ³Are you so foolish? After beginning with the Spirit, are you now trying to attain your goal by human effort? ⁴Have you suffered so much for nothing—if it really was for nothing? ⁵Does God give you his Spirit and work miracles among you because you observe the law, or because you believe what you heard?

⁶Consider Abraham: "He believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness."^[a] ⁷Understand, then, that those who believe are children of Abraham. ⁸The Scripture foresaw that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, and announced the gospel in advance to Abraham: "All nations will be blessed through you."^[b] ⁹So those who have faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith.

¹⁰All who rely on observing the law are under a curse, for it is written: "Cursed is everyone who does not continue to do everything written in the Book of the Law."^[c] ¹¹Clearly no one is justified before God by the law, because, "The righteous will live by faith."^[d] ¹²The law is not based on faith; on the contrary, "The man who does these things will live by them."^[e] ¹³Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, for it is written: "Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree."^[f] ¹⁴He redeemed us in order that the blessing given to Abraham might come to the Gentiles through Christ Jesus, so that by faith we might receive the promise of the Spirit.

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Ahh, the famous passage that will always make New Creation Church stands out from the rest. I chuckle when I recall how I accepted Christianity in Primary Six in ACPS when I recall the 6 pamphlets I read about how, once you accept Christ, true your relationship with God will never be broken, no matter how much u sin later. But if you sin, your "fellowship" with God will be broken and you must quickly confess your sins and repent to restore that fellowship.

And in my testimonial, I always remember the thinking in primary six when I saw those crowns that will be given to me if I do this and I do that, I was thinking then, "Aiya, I dun really need those extra crowns. It is good to just pray that prayer and believe in God so that I can "guarantee" myself in heaven."

Later on, in the Methodist traditions and even in charismatic churches such as FCBC and TCC, this philosophy became, "If you come to the Lord's table to take holy communion and you have some unrepented sin in your life, watch out, you are taking it in an unworthy manner!" For male Christians, this is obviously a problem since masturbation/pornography is one of those sins that we find it really hard to overcome.

And I remember when I was at Hope of God church, the first charismatic church I was exposed to during 1995, they were praying for me to receive tongues as a prayer language. Coming from a Methodist background, it was of course very tough initially for me to speak in tongues. After a while, one of those Hopies asked me, "Do u have any unconfessed sins? Any strongholds? Blah blah and blah."

I remembered I distinctly replied to one of them, "I find it so strange that when I prayed that prayer to become a Christian, it was so easy to just pray for God to forgive you for your sins and presto, you are saved! How come praying for tongues is so difficult until I have to worry so much of unconfessed sins and those other things?"
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Haha, I guess those episodes explained to a large extent why I fit into New Creation naturally. My natural optimistic nature lends itself very easily to NCC preaching. People may complain about prosperity gospel but to me, it is exactly why I believe being optimistic and smile always helps. Circumstances may be bad but just by looking at the bright side, you will find that many things will actually change to somehow become much better for you.

Thus, if God said in Galatians that I am blessed with all the blessings of Abraham, and Abraham was richly blessed in his life on Earth, I will believe in it, no matter what my circumstances now. New Creation church is perfect for optimists, who have clearly no problem understanding NCC's philosophy, that if you do not believe in the blessings, dun worry, you will not be blessed! That is exactly the optimist's same philosophy regarding looking at the bright side and how that action will change many things.

Thanks Lord for speaking to me through the pastor from Norway today. I truly believe I am blessed with all the blessings of Abraham, through Jesus Christ.

Pot Limit Omaha is sick! The biggest pot in online history

2009-11-24T05:20:28Z

A pot worth US$1.3 million plus was played recently. So sick!

Self condemnation is the hardest to run from

2009-11-22T15:10:40Z

Today's sermon at New Creation by Pastor Lian reminded me again what "no condemnation" really meant. Let's go back to the story of Jesus and the samaritan woman. Note the important verse 4 of John 4

⁴Now he had to go through Samaria

A little bible geography would recognize that the need go to through Samaria is not necessary in the physical sense. Here is the map

Most Jews deliberately avoid going through Samaria even if they have to go from Jerusalem to Galilee. They would go east crossing the River Jordan and move north before crossing west again.

Now why would Jesus have to go through Samaria? The NCC "grace and no condemnation" perspective by Pastor Lian teaches that Jesus had to go through Samaria to reach out to the Samaritan woman, who is suffering from condemnation after being married 5 times and now currently living in adultery. She feels so condemned that she chose to draw water right in the middle of noon to avoid meeting anyone, men or women. Right at that time, Jesus asked her to give her some water, surprising her since Jews do not associate with Samaritans then.

I was very ministered today because I could certainly relate to that. God has created in me this optimistic tendency that, reacts automatically whenever I am feeling sad, to make me look at the bright side. Yet, at times, I do mourn occasionally for the awareness that, my potential in my career, as well as possibly my future life, would be limited by certain characteristics that I was born with. While I clearly do not care much about condemnation by other people, I am aware of the Chinese saying that, "self condemnation is the hardest enemy to overcome".

I confessed that out to the Lord today and I promised myself that I will start to release this sense of self condemnation to the Lord. Eventually the Lord will ask me the same thing as he did to the Samaritan woman, to do something for him to show me that he has freed me from all these limitations.

In the meantime, I shall continue to thank him each day for healing me, to continue to believe that, by taking the holy communion and remembering his death on the cross will continue the healing process, and to continue to pray in the Holy Spirit, who prays perfect prayers and who knows my future. Of course, I must thank God for blessing me so much already.

FTP sign Tom "Durrrr" Dwan as Team Full Tilt

2009-11-10T10:33:31Z

Somali pirates hijack Singapore-flagged ship

2009-11-03T12:01:19Z

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

The new Melrose Place

2009-10-25T03:20:30Z

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.

2 reflections on the dating market experience so far

2009-09-22T10:28:08Z

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.

Charmed Utopia and Singapore

2009-08-21T08:23:33Z

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?

What Singapore's democracy lacks

2009-07-29T15:44:33Z

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!" =)

Should you drop your old geek friends because they aren't cool?

2009-06-26T11:45:42Z

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.

Now I understand why Romans summed up the Christian faith!

2009-06-02T13:00:01Z

When I was a Methodist, after becoming a Christian through my schooling days from ACPS to ACS and to ACJC, I remember reading this statement that says, "If I am stuck in a deserted island and can only take one book of the bible, what would it be?" That book would clearly be the book of Romans for it summed up the Christian faith. Paul was supremely logical in his writings and being a somewhat logical person, I can clearly see how he wrote Romans as a way to convince us of the grace message.

Of course, it was only after I read "Destined to Reign" by Joseph Prince and hearing him preach frequently in New Creation that I really can say now that I understand better (I guess I will never ever say I fully understand), why Romans is indeed the book that summed up the Christian faith. I think NCC is the only church in Singapore, or perhaps the only one in the world, that will link Moses leading the Jews out of Egypt in the book of Exodus as the fulcrum to understand what the grace message in Romans was all about.

Joseph Prince is probably the only pastor at this modern time who could recognized, by the Spirit of God, the critical point at Mount Sinai where Moses received the Ten Commandments, as the example of what Grace is all about. Prior to Mount Sinai, all the complaints by the Jews about them having to die at the Red Sea, of them having no water to drink and of them having no meat to eat, were met by the grace of God without any Jew dying. After Mount Sinai, when the Jews decided to tell Moses to tell God to judge them by their own merit, the complaints from the Jews led to death.

The best way to understand the contrast is through reading 2 chapters, Exodus 16 and Numbers 11. In Exodus 16, God's attitude was

³And the children of Israel said unto them, Would to God we had died by the hand of the LORD in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the flesh pots, and when we did eat bread to the full; for ye have brought us forth into this wilderness, to kill this whole assembly with hunger.

⁴Then said the LORD unto Moses, Behold, I will rain bread from heaven for you; and the people shall go out and gather a certain rate every day, that I may prove them, whether they will walk in my law, or no.

God's grace was there to provide manna from heaven for these complainers. And just contrast it to Numbers 11 and you will be really shocked!

¹ Now the people complained about their hardships in the hearing of the LORD, and when he heard them his anger was aroused. Then fire from the LORD burned among them and consumed some of the outskirts of the camp. ² When the people cried out to Moses, he prayed to the LORD and the fire died down. ³ So that place was called Taberah, ^[a] because fire from the LORD had burned among them.

⁴ The rabble with them began to crave other food, and again the Israelites started wailing and said, "If only we had meat to eat! ⁵ We remember the fish we ate in Egypt at no cost—also the cucumbers, melons, leeks, onions and garlic. ⁶ But now we have lost our appetite; we never see anything but this manna!"

¹⁰ Moses heard the people of every family wailing, each at the entrance to his tent. The LORD became exceedingly angry, and Moses was troubled.

³¹ Now a wind went out from the LORD and drove quail in from the sea. It brought them ^[c] down all around the camp to about three feet ^[d] above the ground, as far as a day's walk in any direction. ³² All that day and night and all the next day the people went out and gathered quail. No one gathered less than ten homers. ^[e] Then they spread them out all around the camp. ³³ But while the meat was still between their teeth and before it could be consumed, the anger of the LORD burned against the people, and he struck them with a severe plague. ³⁴ Therefore the place was named Kibroth Hattaavah, ^[f] because there they buried the people who had craved other food.

You have to truly see that critical point to really understand what living by Grace is all about. With that perspective, you can now understand why, in Romans, when sin increased, grace increase all the more, and that it is utterly impossible for God to condemn you for your sins. Thus, reading and recognizing the story of Mount Sinai is critical to understand what Romans is really all about.

New Creation's preaching on 31st May

Last Sunday, 31st of May, Julia Lian preached on a grace message that uses an interesting point from the Old Testament. Her main message to us, if I interpret correctly, is that if only we know how God has such a remarkable plan to save the Jews and to allow them to rebuild the temple, we will take courage and rejoice in whatever tough times we are going through now and know that God will eventually bring us through. The interesting example she uses is that God used Nebuchadnezzar, of the Babylonians, to punish the Jews for turning away from God. At this point, I will always remember the song made famous by Boney M, "By the rivers of Babylon", that described the Jews agony then in the best possible way, quoting from Psalms 137

By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept, when we remembered Zion... For there they that carried us away captive required of us a song; and they that wasted us required of us mirth, saying, Sing us one of the songs of Zion. How shall we sing the LORD's song in a strange land?

I chuckled when I remember reading, in secondary school, the part in Psalms 137 that goes, "blessed is he who seizes your infants and dashes them against the rocks." It really showed the frustration of the Jews towards the captives, to the extent they harbor such great violent fantasies towards their captives.

Of course, God had other plans, he raised Cyrus of Persia to deliver them from their captivity in Babylon and return them to their land. We are talking about a Persian king, and Persia, now known at Iran, could never be seen as God's people but yet God raised him up to allow the Jews to come back to rebuild the temple.

What an awesome story that I have never really realized up until now. And I was very touched by God when Julia Lian ended her sermon with the point on how, after God had killed all the firstborn of the Egyptians but saved the Jews through the blood of the Lamb, the Jews walked among the Egyptians with hands held high to the Lord, like a high five. Indeed, I was reminded once again that, no matter what concerns and worry I have now about the future, God knows my concerns and he is just asking me to seek first his kingdom and rejoice in the Lord always. If he can formulate such a great plan to save the Jews after 70 years, he will make me look back 5 years from now and rejoice at how he has led me through those worries and concerns. I will then walk around with my hands lifted to the Lord and my mouth expressing all the thanks that he will do exceedingly, abundantly, above all I could ever ask for and think.

Blame Aware!

2009-05-07T09:22:55Z

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.

The Art of 3-betting preflop

2009-05-05T12:40:48Z

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.

The Light 3-Bet

A light 3-bet is any 3-bet made with a hand that normally wouldn’t be strong enough. It’s a type of semibluff. You raise with the hope of stealing the pot immediately, but you retain a chance, if called, to win after the flop. Any strategy that includes 3-betting for value should also include some light 3-betting.

Potentially, any time the pot is raised and the action is on you, you could 3-bet light. Obviously you want to pick your spots, as 3-betting every time would unbalance your strategy.

When choosing your spots, follow these principles:

Attack Players with a High Fold To 3-bet Percentage

Modern poker tracking software maintains a stat called “Fold To 3-bet Percentage.” This stat measures how frequently a player folds when confronted with a 3-bet.

If your opponent’s Fold To 3-bet Percentage is sufficiently high, 3-betting them with any two cards when they open raise can show an automatic profit. Even if they don’t fold quite often enough to show an automatic profit by 3-betting, you can still frequently attack their raises with light 3-bets. Players with Fold To 3-bet stats of 75 or higher are particularly vulnerable to attack.

Attack Players Raising from a Steal Position

A light 3-bet will succeed more often against a player opening from a steal position than one opening from up front. This tends to be particularly true against raisers with a high Attempt To Steal (ATS) Percentage. ATS measures how frequently a player opens the pot from the cutoff, button, or small blind when everyone in front folds. For example, everyone folds to the button who opens for $7. He has an ATS of 45, a relatively high number for this stat. You can 3-bet this player liberally from either the small or the big blind.

An ATS above 35 indicates a loose raising range, while an ATS below 25 indicates a tighter player.

Attack Players Who Tend To Call Rather Than 4-Bet

Most players will try to defend themselves if they think one of their opponents is 3-betting light against them. Some players defend mainly by calling the 3-bet and seeing a flop, while others use a light 4-betting strategy. Both of these options are exploitable if executed poorly, but the players who tend to call and see a flop are typically more exploitable.

Callers are weaker because their opponent always gets to see a flop, and most players who call adhere too closely to a fit-or-fold strategy postflop. For instance, such a player might open from the hijack seat with pocket threes and get 3-bet on the button. They’ll call, planning to commit if they flop a set but fold if they don’t.

This strategy is a mathematical disaster. The player with the threes will flop a set or better roughly 12 percent of the time. The other 88 percent of the time, they will lose their $17 preflop call of the 3-bet. To make this strategy break even, the player with the threes would have to average a win of at least $125 each time they make a set.

Unfortunately, the player with the threes won’t come close to averaging $125. Most of the time that he shoves on the flop, the 3-bettor will fold. After all, he 3-bets light, and therefore he often won’t have a strong enough hand postflop to commit. So most of the time the set doesn’t get paid off. Overall, you expect to lose several dollars every time you call that $17 3-bet with a pocket pair then play fit-or-fold postflop. Indeed, even if you improve the strategy by throwing in a few postflop bluffs, playing fit-or-fold in 3-bet pots is so bad to begin with that you can’t really make it profitable.

Calling light 3-bets with big cards and suited connectors can work better, but fit-or-fold still doesn’t work. You have to bluff aggressively postflop to call a 3-bet profitably with any non-premium hand. Since most players who call to defend against your light 3-bets won’t play nearly aggressively enough postflop, you can exploit them by pouring on the raw aggression. Against these fit-or-folders, bet the flop frequently and, if called, follow it up with a generous number of turn barrels. They’ll fold too often to make their strategy profitable.

Indeed, if you identify a player who calls 3-bets frequently and plays fit-or-fold postflop, you should 3-bet them light over and over again. The more you 3-bet them, the more money you make, at least until they adjust.

Attack More Frequently When Callers Have Entered The Pot

Light 3-betting is often more attractive when one or more players have called the original raise. These callers rarely end up calling your 3-bet. After all, if they held a hand strong enough to play a 3-bet pot, they would frequently have 3-bet themselves. Launching a 3-bet in a pot with one or more callers is called a squeeze play or squeezing.

The benefits of squeezing are obvious – you win a significantly bigger pot when successful. The pitfall is that you will succeed less often. Also, good players are naturally suspicious of 3-bets made in squeezing situations, and that suspicion may encourage them to play back at you.

But overall, squeezing tends to be a quite profitable. You should be squeezing a significant minority of the time you’re presented the opportunity to do so.

Stages of a poker player

2009-04-25T08:52:25Z

Ed Miller gave a good list of the stages that a tight aggressive (TAG) player goes through as he learn poker. I think I am at stage 7 now, with some great reluctance to 3-bet my hands light preflop. I am suppose to start moving up to 50nl this year but unfortunately, I am still not getting a solid win-rate at 10nl with a full buyin to be honest. I have no problems playing 10nl with 50bb and 25nl with 40bb but 100bb is still quite a struggle for me.

From now until end June, I hope to consolidate my skills playing 10nl with a full 100BB stack each time and learn the art of TAG style, that is raising every hand I enter with and be an aggressive blind stealer in position. I managed to secure a rakeback account at an iPoker network site, through a concept known as grandfathering. It is so interesting how you can learn so many new English expressions through playing poker hehe.

Because of that "grandfathered" rakeback, I think I am going to start with that site first before finally settling at Full Tilt. By the end of June, I hope to reach at least stage 13, hehe, learning to 3 bet light from the blinds will be a big challenge. Definitely I still want to be super comfortable with a 100BB stack at 25nl by the end of this year.

Stages of a TAG

1. Hrmm, this K5s looks kinda good

2. I will never play anything but these 18 hands under any circumstances

3. I need to fold postflop if I don’t hit a hand. And I need to fold to pressure if I don’t have a great hand.

4. Maybe I can loosen up a little bit in position. I can play more hands because I know how to fold them postflop.

5. I need to bet my good hands hard so I can get value for them.

This is basically the evolved stage of a “nit”. Tight preflop, slightly looser in position, and mainly putting in serious money postflop only with strong hands. Nits can make money, but they need to really multitable hard to get any kind of real traction.

6. I can semibluff decent draws postflop with essentially no added risk.

7. C-betting is much more powerful if you follow it up sometimes with turn barrelling.

8. I should 3-bet more hands preflop for value.

9. I can now play a few more hands from all position because bluffing makes bad hands profitable sometimes.

10. I need to adjust my preflop game to my opponents. That means not folding as much to frequent 3-bettors, calling more on the button against light openers.

11. I should look for small pots that nobody in particular seems to want and attack them.

This is where a lot of the TAG regulars in microstakes fit in. This is also about where most of what I write and produce picks up.

12. I need to adjust my postflop play somewhat to my opponents. That means getting it in with stuff like top pair against bad or loose players.

13. I can make money by stealing more preflop. I can steal more loosely from the button, and I can 3-bet light from the button and blinds.

14. I can also get carried away and start opening too many hands from all positions.

15. I can combat light 3-bettors with light 4-bets and light 4-bettors with light 5-bet shoves.

16. Double barrelling can be quite effective, and sometimes I should resort to firing three barrels.

17. I can take aggrodonks who bet every flop off their hands with well-timed raises and floats.

18. I should seek out bad players and try to isolate them to play as many pots as possible with them.

19. Preflop hand values usually depend far more on the situation than on the intrinsic value of the cards.

20. The size of the pot determines how aggressive I need to play and how committed I am to the pot.

21. I should look for large pots that people seem to have given up on and shove my money in.

22. I can value bet on the river much lighter against bad players and expect to get called by worse hands.

This is about where you need to be if you want to play online poker for a living at the $1-$2 level or so. At this stage players usually vary from loose TAGs to LAGs. Virtually everything I write and produce is designed to get people from stage 11 to stage 22.

23. I need to focus on line balancing. Reading hands lets me find unbalanced lines in my own play and in my opponents’ play.

24. Through obvservation I can determine roughly what level my opponent plays at and out-level them by one level

25. I can make seemingly drastic adjustments to my game to exploit opponents playing an unbalanced strategy.

Tom Dwan saved High Stakes Poker season 5 again

2009-04-20T16:05:33Z

by 5-betting 8 6 offsuit preflop hehe, and the 2 of them check on all 3 streets. This picture sums it up the best, Howard Lederer's face was priceless!

To what extent is Aware's takeover beneficial to civil society in Singapore?

2009-04-20T06:39:03Z

The title certainly sounds like a GP essay question hehe. But I will of course insert an economic perspective to the picture.

In general, civil society in Singapore suffers from the "public good" aspect of their activities, resulting in under-provision. For example, look at our SDP. Even if there might be a significant group of Singaporeans who desire more democracy, it is optimal for them to "act blur" and let people like Chee Soon Juan and his Merry Men pay the entire price of going against the Matrix. If, in our lifetime, the SDP succeeds in making Singapore more democratic, the benefits will largely be "non-rival" and "non-exclusive".

In plain english, once SDP "succeeds", everyone who desires democracy would certainly gain without the need to pay any price. Of course, like the Aesop fable about "belling the cat", everyone thinking this way would mean there either would be no one paying the price, or an underallocation of resources into this, which is clearly what the SDP and other groups are constantly facing.

Thus, we can see Aware's new takeover from this light. If you belong to the conservative group of Singaporeans who are worried about this slow process of society accepting homosexuals, you would wish that someone else take the step forward to "pay the price" to reverse this process. Hence, I see Josie and her gang's actions from this light. They are the group of Christians, from the conservative Church of our Savior, who are stepping forward to pay the initial price of public outcry, examples of the real price these people are paying are here and here, in order to correct something they think should be corrected.

In this light, I can applaud them, to the large extent, for being so proactive and willing to provide a "public good". To a small extent, I may be fine with homosexuals and it is obvious that the gay community will be uncomfortable with this kind of scenario. However, I see this as how this proactive group is trying to tell the rest of us apathetic Singaporeans that they are at least doing something, which is certainly something we can learn from.

Yes I agree that the new 90210 girls are too skinny!

2009-04-04T06:26:45Z

Had a chance to view this interesting commentary on whether the new 90210 girls seems to be promoting anorexic behavior among girls. I certainly was amazed at how "slim" the new female stars of the show have been. I always feel that guys like healthy girls and not necessarily slim girls.

Upon viewing the above clip, I set my mind thinking of how 90210 was like during my time, which I last mentioned here. Is there a good example of a girl with "cute fats" around her and yet irresistibly attractive to us then? I came up with the perfect girl, that is Valarie Malone! Her real name is Tiffani amber thiessen and she only joined 90210 after Brenda left and some would say she was the main reason why 90210 continued to be popular even after season 4. Here is a sample Youtube clip that showed her with Dylan Mckay at their best haha.

After viewing this clip again, and recalling all that I have seen in 90210 seasons 5 and 6, yeah I have to agree, the new 90210 girls are way too skinny and certainly not appealing at all compared to Tiffani at her prime haha.

UOB officers behaving like Southpark bankers

2009-04-01T10:43:06Z

Reading this letter certainly made me recall this latest Southpark episode where the money goes into the bank and then...its gone!

April 1, 2009

STRUCTURED PRODUCT SOLD TO 78-YEAR-OLD

'Guaranteed' principal was just an 'oversight'

MY FATHER and I share the frustrations experienced by Mr Victor Khoo ('Minibonds: Bank adamant despite MAS advice'; March 27)

My Cantonese-speaking father, 78, who barely has a Primary 2 Chinese education, went to United Overseas Bank (UOB) to roll over his fixed deposit (FD), which was maturing in July last year. But he was persuaded by a personal banker into buying - with a good part of his retirement savings - what he believed was a three-year FD. It turned out to be a Merrill Lynch principal-protected structured product. At this time, Merrill Lynch was already known to be in financial difficulties.

When my siblings and I discovered this, we met the said personal banker to void this non-FD transaction. We later met the bank's compliance officers, but came away feeling UOB was more interested in justifying its actions than listening to us. We refused to sign the draft minutes which didn't reflect our key points.

Despite many exchanges thereafter, the bank declined our request to void the purchase. In September, Lehman Brothers and Merrill Lynch were both reported to be collapsing. Extremely distressed, my father redeemed the product and suffered a loss of nearly $50,000 in just two months.

The reason my father thought it was an FD was because the personal banker had assured him it was guaranteed. She had also written in his 'My Wealth Planner' document that the 'principal is guaranteed upon maturity' - which was untrue and misleading as it was not a guaranteed product.

When questioned, UOB, in its written reply, dismissed it as an 'oversight' by its personal banker, again declining to compensate my father and referring us to the Financial Industry Disputes Resolution Centre (Fidrec).

We are truly appalled and disappointed. Clearly, the bank must be accountable for its mistakes. For UOB to just pass this off as an oversight, without redress, is really untenable. We sincerely hope the Monetary Authority of Singapore would render direct help to such affected consumers like my father.

Chin Kin Yam (Madam)

Joseph Prince Superstar

2009-03-30T12:31:04Z

Economics of Superstars and Joseph Prince

And yet another story has emerged about New Creation Church, this time, we realized that Pastor Joseph Prince was paid a sum over $500,000 in the last financial year. I felt it was rather "naughty" of Straits Times to put such a news on the very frontpage of the Straits Times. Running it so close after the story of NCC managing to raise 19 million dollars in 1 day during "Miracle Seed Sunday", it seems to drive the implication that many of the givings goes to paying "superstar" salaries.

I have commented more than once, from an economic perspective, how New Creation Church is actually justified in focusing on money intensive activities. After worshiping at NCC for sometime, I begin to view Joseph Prince as a very clear example of what economist Sherwin Rosen said more than 2 decades ago, that Prince is a "superstar". In his well known AER article "The economics of superstar", he asked the question, why "relatively small numbers of people earn enormous amounts of money and seem to dominate the fields in which they engage.”.

Joseph Prince fits in the superstar category. He clearly has the gift of preaching and his grace message appeals to rich people who may sometimes feel guility of having a "comparative advantage" in money based activities, due to their high opportunity cost of time. His good looks certainly does not hurt too. What I am impressed about him is how he made sure he preaches in every sermon, which means 4 times every Sunday when he is the preacher. Coming from FCBC before when I noticed the extensive use of video recording from Lawrence Khong, I certainly appreciated Prince in that.

Furthermore, yesterday, after I laughed so heartily at his closing joke during the 4th service, about how "You guys sit down there thinking you can dance better than me, but try to dance like that after speaking for 4 times lar", I realized why I find his sermons so appealing. He is a typical lame guy and crack all those lame jokes that many lame guys like me will often do from time to time when we address a crowd haha. Thus, I really appreciate his jokes because I know, from my experience at Trinity Christian Center, how boring a sermon can be without those jokes.

Similarities between Joseph Prince and Adam Khoo

And after I had the chance to read Adam Khoo's books, I realized many similarities between the 2 preaching styles. Adam Khoo recognized, in his seminar for kids, that the mind is very powerful. Like his book goes, "I am a genuis, so are you!" If your mind thinks you are a genius, more than half the battle is won. Prince is well know for his message on grace, which, in a more formal tone, he focused more on the indicative, rather than the imperative. Thus, I see Joseph Prince delivering a similar message along Adam Khoo's line, that once our mind thinks that we are powerful in Christ, we can go on and do great things for him in this world.

Furthermore, Adam Khoo's more investment oriented books mentioned that, to get rich, you need to go beyond working to get paid but ensure that money still comes in even when you sleep. That is when he suggested coming up with intellectual property and making sure people around the world are buying them. In this aspect, I am very curious to confirm my hypothesis, that part of Joseph Prince "500K" package, could also come from his extremely popular DVD series of various preaching sermons, as well as his book, "Destined to Reign".

All these media are being sold throughout the world. Now if it is true, and I will make sure I try to verify my hypothesis soon, then we should clearly not begrudge his earnings. Like what economists would say, "The market have decided that his intellectual property are very valuable to society and thus is compensating him well."

Conclusion

Well, to be honest, I did not contribute to Miracle Seed Sunday. Again, my reasoning is that I am still having some difficulties maintaining a 10% tithe, which I, thank God, have been doing it after much prayer and deliberation, especially during these times of salary + performance bonus. To be objective, Joseph Prince himself stated very clearly that, if you do not feel the Lord's calling in terms of this, he rather you not give. I am still trying my best to keep returning 10% of my gross income every month consistently.

Now, if you were to ask me whether I am worried about the "precious" tithe financing Prince's superstar pay package, I can tell you honestly "Not at all!"

After all, I know that I am returning to God my 10% because God wants to constantly remind me to break free of the love of money. Jesus preached more about money than heaven and earth combined and everytime I put 10% of my gross income into that tithe envelope, I know that the Spirit in my heart leap for joy because I am constantly putting my faith in God. This is something that dancing in church, praying in tongues, or lifting hands enthusiastically in church will not accomplish. I keep having to remember verses like, "If you are not faithful with earthly wealth, who will trust you with true riches" and "Do not worry about what you wear, what you eat" when I put my tithe in that envelope.

That to me, is the main reason why I return 10% of what God blessed me with to New Creation Church, to honour God and to constantly break free from the love of money. It is certainly not about Joseph Prince.

Love will keep us alive

2009-03-15T15:12:39Z

What a classic song this is! It will always bring me back to my university days when this song was first performed in 1994. Now, I am viewing this using a PSP hehe. I remembered I first fell in love with this song when I was passing by one of those electronic mega complex and there it was, the "Hell Freezes Over" concert was being played on a big TV and the sound that came out of the speaker was so good that it made me paused and watch the rest of this performance.

I mean, we all know how good Hotel California sounded in that concert but this other song captivated me too. It is actually quite ordinary but it was clearly saved by the vocals of Tim Schmit.

Tom Dwan saved episode 2 HSP

2009-03-09T14:03:33Z

Man, this episode was so boring until this last hand. Tom Dwan amazingly got both Eastgate and Barry G to fold despite Dwan having the worst hand. And Tom could even tell that Eastgate folded trips and that Barry had a big overpair that could not withstand that much pressure.

If I can assume episode 2 events took place after episode 1, I think Tom Dwan uses his knowledge of Eastgate from the first episode when they both had trips, the one with Dwan's comical face, to know that Eastgate would fold a weak trip to a double barrel.

If so, Dwan really pwns this episode. I thought episode 2 was super boring until THAT very last hand of episode. And this example, reinforces, to me at least, how deep stack poker is very different from medium or short stack. Eastgate won quite a fair amount of money before that very last hand, which made him very hesistant to commit his stack with weak trips at the turn, and he withered to Tom Dwan's relentless pressure.

Here is Barry G's analysis of this hand. I am glad I got it correct about the importance of buying in for the correct stack size. Yes, if you see a fish on the table, it is good to buy-in for enough to have him covered. But you must always be aware of a tradeoff in doing so, that when another shark is at the same game, you will end up having very tough decisions to make, especially at the turn and out of position.

Here is another analysis of the hand by pokerlistings.

Ahh the buildup to High Stakes Poker

2009-02-28T03:36:46Z

Cannot wait for 1st March, or rather 2nd March Singapore time, where the 5th season of High Stakes Poker would kickoff. Here is another teaser video from that series to keep the juices pumping. Tom Dwan and Patrik Antonius would be the players to watch for this season!

Tom Dwan's facial expression is priceless!

2009-02-26T11:49:54Z

Ahh the new season of High Stake Poker is coming very soon, and this teaser preview juices up the action. Tom Dwan's face was like this

Cannot wait for March 1st for the action to begin!

Old school kpop at her best!

2009-02-22T04:19:58Z

Haha, so many sweet memories of the past came back when I had a chance to view kpop group, FINKL, or Fine Killing Liberty, and their songs again. They were trying to compete with the leader of female kpop group, SES, during the late 90s and early 2000s, with a very wide genre of songs and some of them became very memorable. The first one was of course "To my Boyfriend", which many Chinese would recognized, was also sung by Yuki Hsu, but I am guessing probably she took it from Finkl.

Finkl was widely known mainly because of the hot singer, Lee Hyori, who later went solo with songs like "10 minutes". Sung Yuri was also one of the more attractive ones. Like all kpop groups, there is high marginal propensity to lip-synch but I found a very good live performance of their song, "Waiting for You", that really showed that they can actually sing.

"Waiting for You" is one of my favorite songs from Finkl. Other than the beat, I really like the simple dance chereography hehe.

An exercise in Marginal thinking

2009-02-21T05:20:36Z

In economics, thinking at the margin is probably one of the more subtle skills that, just like poker, it is easy to pick up but take a lifetime to master. Even after so many years of being exposed to the dismal science, I am still learning new applications all the time that strengthen this understanding. The latest lesson is from Gregory Mankiw here and it also provide a good lesson on how APC and MPC are related and yet different in macroeconomics.

Some basic definitions: Average propensity to consume (APC) is the ratio of consumption to income. Marginal propensity to consume (MPC) is the extra consumption generated by a dollar of extra income. Now these 2 terms may seem very similar but in times like these in Singapore where we are facing huge uncertainty over our income and cash flows, and the govt is trying to decide how to stimulate spending, being very clear about MPC and APC is crucial. In Mankiw's words,

"Now introduce uncertainty and precautionary saving effects. That uncertainty would depress consumption at all levels of cash-on-hand, but it would depress consumption more at low levels of cash. Those with high cash levels can more easily bear the effects of the uncertainty and would change their consumption less. But if consumption is depressed more at lower levels of cash than at higher levels, then it follows, as a sheer mathematical matter, that the marginal propensity to consume from an extra dollar of cash has gone up. In other words, uncertainty lowers the APC but raises the MPC. People save more in response to uncertainty, but their spending becomes more sensitive to current cash flow."

What Mankiw is saying is that, uncertainty will lower APC for everyone, making them less willing to consume out of their income. This might make us feel that any form of tax rebate or tax cut will not really encourage them to spend. However, it is the marginal effect that matters here, since any tax rebate will now give consumers additional income and it so turns out that, for the poor, having a low APC may actually result a high MPC.

And I certainly smiled when I read Mankiw's last paragraph that, "It is true that my university salary is reasonably secure, but more of my income comes from book royalties than salary, and that income is anything but stable." Indeed, for many of us, we may have a stable job but our other revenue sources can be highly dependent on the state of the economy too hehe.