Nat Arem's Blog

I changed the picture links just in case those guys try to remove them — I obv save and rehosted them from ImageShack.

(00:54:30) ajunglen: http://www.natarem.com/uploads/vancouver1.jpg
(00:54:46) ajunglen: http://www.natarem.com/uploads/vancouver2.jpg
(00:54:50) ajunglen: lol
(00:55:07) GIFAFI: vancouver?
(00:55:09) ajunglen: Yea
(00:55:18) GIFAFI: lolz at the <21 tourney circuit
(00:55:22) ajunglen: haha
(00:55:22) GIFAFI: it’s so f ing random
(00:55:28) ajunglen: Yea
(00:55:45) GIFAFI: next thing you’ll be in like venezuela fighting for your lives
(00:55:58) ajunglen: lol, probably
(00:56:09) GIFAFI: “the twin-caracas play to keep your knee(s) classic”
(00:56:14) ajunglen: haha
(00:56:17) GIFAFI: sorry, couldn’t help myself
(00:56:24) ajunglen: standard
(00:56:26) GIFAFI:
(00:56:53) ajunglen: “Take us to your finest playground”
(00:56:58) GIFAFI: haha
(00:57:06) GIFAFI: bring us all of your finest cookies and milk
(00:57:31) GIFAFI: i demand your highest quality nap pad for my parentally dictated naptime
(00:57:34) ajunglen: lol
(00:57:47) GIFAFI: i want a fine mahogany study desk for my middle school homework
(00:58:01) ajunglen: so on and so forth
(00:58:05) GIFAFI: i could keep going
(00:58:07) GIFAFI: obv
(00:58:12) ajunglen: heh

On Friday morning, I flew out to LA from Las Vegas to visit my friend stevesbets. I’ve known Steve for a long time, but we’ve only become friends in the last two years or so via the poker world. Around a year ago, Steve moved out to Pasadena with his girlfriend, so we haven’t been able to hang out as much as we used to. The old routine was basically IMing Steve around 1 am, heading down to his UPenn-area Philadelphia apt (I lived in the suburbs at the time) and then hitting up the Philly Diner on Walnut and 40th (I think) around the 3 o’clock hour. Add that to a bunch of trips to AC, a trip to Foxwoods, the PCA, etc.

In addition, I’ve had a bunch of business dealings with Steve’s friends from Penn who play poker, so I stay in touch on and off with those guys. And the whole group is pretty hilarious. They all have nicknames which I obv won’t repeat here and they all have various hilarious stories. In addition, they all have their own little niche in the group of friends and it’s REALLY funny to hear about their interactions and whatnot. Actually, even the emails that will result from this blog post (some of them at least occasionally read my blog — and as soon as one reads it, the rest will INSTA-report it) will be funny. It’s kinda hard to describe without all sorts of details that I’m sure they don’t want on the internet and I would never repeat to anyone without their permission (I’d never get it, so no point asking). Anyway, hearing all of the stories and watching new ones unfold is really great. I don’t know if I’d want to be in this little world all the time for a lot of reasons (most of which I can’t expound upon for the reasons listed above), but it is certainly fun to hear about sometimes.

Since I got here, we’ve basically stayed in “downtown” Pasadena near Steve’s apartment. I don’t really have any desire to go into downtown LA or various other parts of the area. Way too much traffic and effort for whatever is there. So we basically hang out at this area called “Paseo Colorado” and for the most part don’t leave the area except for random food outings. Lots of good places to eat here though. Obviously most of the time has been spent in the apartment watching the NBA playoffs and gambling online. Some Stars, but mainly Full Tilt.

Also, we’re going to go back to Las Vegas pretty soon. Steve is going for the week for the Mirage events (mainly the 5K HU tournament) so he’ll just give me a ride back. Should be a fun week having a friend in town. Can’t wait to see what the Penn’ers have to say about this entry. f the shreep, despite all of our past positive dealings.

First, thanks for all of the support in the comments after the previous entry. I’m going to keep doing what I’m doing, but I wanted to clear it up for the people who may have misunderstood my intentions.

Okay, to this post’s topic…

This is pretty obvious to anyone who has been involved in any sort of gambling, not just poker. Whether it’s real estate, stocks, sports… whatever. But despite it being obvious, it’s still cool for me to see it written down and expressed clearly.

http://prospect-theory.behaviouralfinance.net/ 1. “An individual views monetary consequences in terms of changes from a reference level, which is usually the individual’s status quo. The values of the outcomes for both positive and negative consequences of the choice then have the diminishing returns characteristic. 2. The resulting value function is steeper for losses than for gains. This implies loss aversion; equal-magnitude gains and losses do not have symmetric impacts on the decision. Losses hurt more than gains satisfy; most empirical estimates conclude that losses are about twice as painful as gains are pleasurable. 3. The curve is concave for gains and convex for losses, impying that decision makers will be risk averse when choosing between gains and risk seeking when choosing between losses.”Poker is an endless game. Get a grip on yourself.

Post from 2+2 user deluz35

Something has been brought to my attention by a friend that kinda bothers me. I’ve been told that my blog comes off as snobby because of things like the use of the word “balla” and pictures that I’ve put up. I also noticed the following two quotes (from separate pages) on PokerVerdict:

Finally here’s our regular shot of balla-ness. N 82 50 24 aka Nat Arem continues to show us his obsession for status symbols by taking a load of photos of various poker players’ watches. All the kids are going apeshit about Patrik Antonius’ timepiece, but my feeling is that this post lends greater weight to the theory that money can’t buy you taste.

Seeing as we’re talking about the EPT Grand Final check out Nat Arem’s blog for another perspective on Monte Carlo. He has uploaded a bunch of photos of him and his buddies which include ActionJeff and Jeff “yellowsub86″ Williams (last year’s Grand Final winner) on their way to Monaco. If you want to see what a bunch of “balla” teenage high stakes millionaire poker players look like on their way to somewhere outside of the United States of America then this is the blog for you. I notice Shaniac manages to cadge a lift with them on their helicopter … sweet.

What I’ve realized is that some people might not realize that I’m joking around when I post pictures and make comments about “balla” things. I don’t have an obsession for status symbols — but I know that tons of people in the poker world think watches are cool and I thought people would appreciate it if I tried to get some up-close shots of watches. The reality was that BLUFF was paying me to take pictures at the WPT Championship and, at times, I got a little bored. So I basically said to myself, what would the P5s/2+2/blog readership crowd want to see that I could take a picture of? The Bellagio fountains? Nope. Slot machines? Nope. More pictures of Carlos Mortensen? Probably not. Expensive watches? Sure, why not. A lot of people enjoyed seeing those pictures as evidenced by the thread on P5s.

And I’m joking when I talk about “balla” things. I know I’ve made brag posts on this blog before, but that’s because I think people WANT to see those things. I don’t make my occasional brag post for any reason other than trying to entertain the readers. I happen to think my blog is unique because of the pictures that I’ve put up over the last 16 or 17 months and I like to try to continue to bring unique content to my readers.

To anyone who thinks that I’m obsessed with status symbols, I’m not. I don’t obsess over being “balla.” I’m not “balla” or whatever that really means. Hell, I don’t even like most material possessions. I’m just a mediocre computer programmer who enjoys the poker world and is trying to have fun with my blog.

I got in touch with GambleAB today on AIM and we decided to meet up this evening for some food, trivia and bowling. I left my apartment around 10 PM for his place kinda on the edge of Summerlin. He’s living there with veeRob, buxx, micon and MaconMarc, although I don’t think micon and Marc are permanent residents there.

After I picked him up, we went to this place called Buffalo Wild Wings Grill and Bar on Hualapai Way kinda near the western end of Tropicana — a few miles west of the strip. I don’t really eat wings (!), so I just ordered some shrimp/chicken thing while AB got wings+some other stuff. He played a bunch of video poker while we just chatted. I told him about some of the new projects that I’m interested in doing this summer and he seemed to think they’d be fairly popular, so that’s good news. For those of you who don’t know Aaron, he’s generally candid so I think he would tell me if he didn’t think they’d succeed. After an hour or so, Aaron’s girlfriend stopped by after work and got some food for herself.

After the bar, we went to the Suncoast Bowling Lanes. It’s a pretty big alley kinda right in the middle of the Suncoast, an off-strip casino that I hadn’t been to before. It was pretty nice from what I saw and the lanes were great. At first, we decided to do two games each. I’m a truly terrible bowler, although I used to be good. When I was in high school, I used to bowl pretty consistently in the 150-180 range. I bowled over 200 a few times. But in the last 7 years or so, I’ve let myself slide. I barely bowled in college and since poker became a big part of my life, I’ve basically never gone bowling. I went a few times with law school classmates last fall in Atlanta and I was just terrible. I couldn’t break 100. I then just went to practice when I had some free time this spring and I still couldn’t get any sort of accuracy going.

Anyway, Aaron asked if I wanted to put some action on the bowling. Considering that he had his own shoes, ball and bowled in a league, there was no way I would bowl him straight up. I told him I’d rather not because I knew if I got lucky with regards to accuracy, I would look like I was Phil Ivey’ing him. But he offered 50 points even after I explained all of this, so I was like, whatever, I’ll do 50 points for $20. So we bowled and I bowled a 100 (about what I expected) and he bowled a 102 (way below what he thought he would bowl). The next game we lower the line to 30. I thought it was fair because I expected to bowl around a 90 (80 being the lowest I’d go and 100 being around the highest I’d go). So that game Aaron bowled a 93 (!) and I bowled a 110-115 (somewhere around there). I went on a X / / run at the end that raised my score by a bit. But Aaron was truly bowling terribly. Multiple 0s on the first shot, etc. I felt bad, but I still thought he was a better bowler than me. He almost certainly is although he was way off tonight.

So we decide to bowl one last game. At this point, my thumb was killing me. I’m not sure what was going on, but I was doing something to irritate it. I don’t have any pictures, but Aaron and his girlfriend can attest to the swelling. It hurt, but I was going to give Aaron a chance to get even. So we did $40 and 15 points. I thought it was fair considering that he was a better bowler and I was bowling in pain. So what happened? Well, I somehow managed to go on the run of my life and bowl 4 straight strikes to start the third game. It was basically over at that point, but I slowed down a bit and finished up with a 185 — by far the highest I’ve bowled since I was like a junior in high school almost 10 years ago. Aaron bowled like a 115 and it was good game. I would have kept going and bowled him even, but my thumb was throbbing and really really hurt. So I called it quits and Aaron and his girlfriend bowled one more game before we left.

It was a fun night and I’m thinking I might go get some bowling equipment. I want to bowl more, but I would prefer to avoid the thumb issue. Remember to look for the final table webcast tomorrow!! I plan on being down there for at least part of it.

I finally updated these things on the side bar. Let me know if I missed anything important.

Thanks to shaniac’s (awesome) blog for providing the bulk of the list.