this is way too long.

There's been some interesting things happening in the world, so I thought I'd air my thoughts on a few things. Disclaimer: I am no where near an expert on anything, so my thoughts are largely useless and prone to much error. Read on at your own risk.

First off, the New Hampshire primaries ended last night with John McCain and Hillary Clinton as victors. Now, in reality, the primary itself isn't that significant. The real significance comes in momentum gains and losses for the various candidates. McCain and Clinton really needed the win first off. McCain's win comes as a defibrillator shock to his campaign. Even still its not certain if he'd make it, but if he didn't win it was certain he would have to bow out of the campaign. Now though, he has to hope that momentum alone will carry him, because, according to news reports, he's close to broke and doesn't have much of a national organization to take advantage of this win.

As for the others, Romney is in pretty bad shape. Two second place finishes in states he was a big favorite for not long ago. In my opinion, the next two states are a must win for him, or else we're going to wave bye bye to mister republican version of John Kerry.

Guliani and Thompson need to show some real movement upwards, with at least a second, I think, in order to stay competitive. Thompson will likely go away soon I imagine. Guliani has a lot of national support, but without much momentum he will begin to peter out soon unless he can pull something together.

Clinton pulled off a stunning win that will stave off utter defeat, I believe. For her this win keeps her in the game and established as the front runner. I believe that if she lost Obama would have so much momentum that it would be almost impossible to stop him. His campaign still has some oompf, but Clinton really has shown that she has staying power and I'm not sure that he can overcome that. I think it's becoming clear that Clinton will win the nomination. Obama is her only competition and the others are non-entities.

So it will be interesting to see what happens from here, especially on the republican side. Its amazing how much money is spent (wasted?) on these campaigns. But I suppose that's the nature of the beast.

In other news, there's a big debate now stemming from a confrontation Joe Sebok had with Isaac Haxton on Poker Road Radio. This has led to a huge thread on 2 + 2 about it with two sides battling. There are two competing arguments that I see. First off, the math game vs. the feel game, and the online players vs. the live players. In the thread players such as Daniel Negreanu, Barry Greenstein, and Daniel Alaei have, in my interpretation, come down on the side of basically seeing poker as a feel game rather than a math game, which somewhat, although not directly, puts them more on the side of the live players (although I think that the whole live vs online thing is pretty stupid, and the pros mentioned above generally agree. more on that later).

This is very encouraging to me, because I always felt that if poker were just a math game that could be "figured out", like blackjack, then it would quickly lose its interest. Instead, the game is more complex than that and I couldn't be happier. It reinforces my belief that poker is like life, so situational. There are situations that reappear and they are similar, but no two situations are 100% alike, and with life, as with poker, there are many different reactions to every situation. They are not black and white, but rather a spectrum. In poker, as in life, there are decisions that are clearly correct and clearly incorrect. But sometimes there are decisions that are good decisions, but perhaps not the best decision for that situation. The differences are subtle and complex, which makes life and poker more interesting. You can't box it and no one has it all figured out. I love it.

The live vs online debate is silly. Much has been said on the subject, but I want to add my two cents. They are two different animals in my opinion and saying which is the best is futile. That being said, I believe that the way online players act and react in the situation is directly connected to their median age. They tend to be younger, usually college aged. In my experience, people of that age, especially males, are arrogant and rash. I know this because I was, and still in many ways, this way.

Add to this the internet factor. If you look on online forums people are downright brutal. Why? Because its so easy to call someone an lifeless fucking asshole on an internet forum when you're hiding behind a computer with a fake name. In my own business I've seen adults say and do things to me in our online courses that they would never do in a live class, simply because they can hide behind technology. This makes the arguments over the online vs live more venomous at times. Granted, not all online pros are this way. In fact many of them, especially the very successful ones, show a lot of class. But all it takes is an hours perusal of online poker forums to see the immaturity of many of the posters.
Publish Post
Anyways, I've said enough. This has become a super blog. Most will not be this long, I promise. But you know what's great? Most of you have stopped reading anyways, so I can say pretty much anything I'd like, your lifeless fucking assholes.

Amen.

Currently listening to: Big Poker Sundays w/ Bob and Huff
About to do: Go have lunch with my wife