Nat Arem's Blog

I have a couple of things to talk about…

First, I put up a new site. It’s called Poker Forum Traffic. The site tracks and ranks the biggest poker forums online using the “posts per day” criteria. The site is literally brand new — 24 hours ago I was still doing testing and it wasn’t even online and live. Now it’s online, although there are still TONS of potential bugs that could occur. Don’t be surprised if you look at the page and we’re saying that some forum has 3 million posts a day… there are lots of things that could be causing that sort of problem. But we’ve eliminated *most* of the critical errors and the site is functioning reasonably well most of the time. Over the next few days and weeks we’ll be adding a lot of functionality to the site, along with putting in safeguards and measures to ensure that potential bugs are dealt with properly. And of course we have to fill in some of the missing data (shown as “n/a”) while also adding a lot more forums. If you’re a member of a poker forum community that is not on the current list of 15, please leave me a comment and I’ll look into getting your forum added. No promises on any specific forum, but I would like to eventually have 50+ poker forums on the site. It could be a good traffic source for your site down the road!

Mainly, the reason I made the site is because I was curious. I didn’t know how 2p2 compared to P5s and how P5s compared to other smaller forums. Of course, posts per day is not the most important thing (people could just be posting crap over and over) when it comes to the “best” poker forum, but it’s really the best overall indicator of how much content is being put onto a forum on a daily basis. It also gives a rough approximation of relative traffic, although obviously some forums could have wildly variant lurker/poster types of ratios.

Anyway, please help me get the word out on Poker Forum Traffic. Post about it on your blog, link to it on forums, etc, etc. I appreciate any help on that front — but, of course, only do it if you think it’s interesting. I’d like to make it into the Poker Site Scout of the poker forum world. Obviously it has a long way to go but it’s on its way.

Moving on, I’m getting settled in here in Costa Rica. I’ve got a condo that I’m living in now and I finally got a car today. It took forever to get the car thing done and I’ve been bumming rides off of people for awhile now, so it’s nice to finally be independent once again. It had been a long time since I’d had to think about getting rides and organizing my schedule around other people. While doing that isn’t nearly as bad as I would have thought a few months ago, it isn’t pleasant and I’m glad it’s over with.

Also, in little less than a month, the LAPT Costa Rica will be taking place. I’m pretty excited to finally have an event in Costa Rica. It’s awesome that PokerStars is doing it and I’m sure they’re going to do a great job with it. I can’t wait to see all of the people that will be down here. My friend Eric from thepokerfilm will be down here for a few weeks in that timespan so it’s going to be an overall fun time then. It’s kind of weird to be away from my normal group of friends here, so it will be nice to be around a lot of familiar faces. Let me know if you’re a blog reader and you’re going to be here — we can all go have a drink or two at some point.

I’ll be posting more about my “big” project soon. The poker forum traffic site is a smaller project right now, but it’s off the ground so I figured I should let people know about it.

I hate to use shock images, but this guy asked for people to see this picture of him.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/myfotopage/2424624202/

There are very few things I tell people not to do. I don’t care if gays marry. I have my feelings on things like abortion, but I’d never tell someone what they should do in their own life. I also really don’t care if people oppose online poker or even more specifically, if they don’t really like thepokerdb and they feel that online statistics sites should be banned. Everyone can have their own opinion and we can all live our own lives. As long as people give me the same respect, I’m fine with it.

HOWEVER. I feel differently about smoking. For a bunch of reasons:

First, smoking in public places bothers other people. Even if smokers have to stand outside, those of us that don’t want to walk through a cloud of poison are being punished unfairly. Separating restaurants really doesn’t work — I still walk out of those places smelling like smoke.

Second, smokers smell. I can’t work with a smoker. I can’t date a smoker (well, an active one that is). It’s hard to be in rooms with people who smell like that. I actually had a situation recently on a four hour flight where I was sitting next to an obvious smoker and I was very very close to asking to change seats. It’s an unbearable smell.

Third, smokers with kids are really doing their whole family an incredible disservice. Sure, there are lots of things that can kill you (too many donuts, etc), but smoking is extremely direct. Smoke -> really high chance of lung cancer and early death. While heart disease is definitely a huge problem too, lots of things contribute to that beyond diet. Things like exercise habits, genetics, stress, etc. Smoking is a way more direct connection and if you smoke, you’re basically saying that you don’t mind taking a significant chunk of life expectancy equity away from yourself. Plus, dying with tubes down your throat and spending your last few years on earth coughing uncontrollably does NOT sound in the least bit pleasant. I’m sure it’s torture for a family and kids to watch a parent go through that.

Fourth, the healthcare costs of treating smokers are huge. At the very least, a lot of morbidly obese people just conk over at some point and die from a heart attack (I know lots of them get hospitalized too). Smokers, almost without exception, will spend significant time in a hospital as they go through the stages of getting lung cancer and then proceeding to die in a hospital. That’s a huge toll on the world’s health care systems and insurance companies. Everyone pays for that whether it be via their medical insurance/premiums or via things like Medicare. That isn’t fair.

Anyway, I could go on. Smoking is one thing that I just wish would go away. I know it won’t, but it affects other people way too significantly for it to be something that I could ever support in any way. Sorry if this offends smokers out there, but it’s just how I feel. You should stop.

Well, as I said, I’ve been getting in MMA lately, so it’s only fitting that I make a post about UFC 83, which is this Saturday (April 19th). You can see the schedule here: UFC 83 fightcard.

As I’ve said, I’m still new to this, so I haven’t seen many of these fighters more than once. Some I haven’t seen fight at all. And some I’ve only seen on YouTube with relatively little to go on, so I didn’t learn that much about them. Lastly, I’m still not very good at evaluating fighters even when I have seen them fight a lot. Anyway, here goes…

Mac Danzig v Mark Bocek:

I love Mac Danzig here. He’s one of the few guys I’ve seen fight a ton. He was very impressive en route to winning The Ultimate Fighter 6. Not only did he win, he crushed people. Granted he didn’t really fight the best fighters in the house. I would have love to see him face George or Ben (unrated IMO) on TUF6. I think they would have both lost to Mac, but George would have put up a good fight. Tommy was just a wreck waiting to happen. Realistically, he was thisclose to being submitted in even his first fight (I think against Ben?) in which case he would have been out right then and there. Anyway, my point being that while I think Mac is a really strong fighter, he didn’t really face anyone up to his level on TUF. I don’t know how he handles being in a tough fight. I don’t know much about Mark except that he’s supposed to be very good at ju jitsu… but Mac is a smart fighter and I don’t really see him getting submitted by a one-dimensional fighter. I pick Mac to win pretty easily.

Charles McCarthy v Michael Bisping:

These guys are both TUF alums. Unfortunately, I wasn’t watching MMA when those TUFs aired and I haven’t downloaded/bought the DVDs yet. So I didn’t get to see either one on their respective TUFs. However, I have seen a few fight videos from each of them and I think it’s pretty clear that Bisping is the better fighter. Not only that, he’s dropping to a new weight class and he’s used to bigger and stronger fighters. Granted he’s coming off a loss, but it was a decision. From what I’ve seen, this guy likes to end fights and I don’t see anything from McCarthy that will slow down Bisping. I actually kind of think the UFC might be giving Bisping a bit of a gift to get him back on track. It would make sense to give him a relatively easy win in his new weight class to set him up to be one of the guys who gets an eventual shot at Anderson Silva after another fight or two (assuming wins).

Travis Lutter v Rich Franklin:

This is tough. From what I’ve read, Rich Franklin is a monster who got destroyed by Anderson Silva — two times. I saw the Silva fights. I haven’t seen a lot of his other fights, but he has a very impressive record. The guy is, after all, a former belt-holder in the 185lb UFC division. Just because he lost badly to Anderson Silva doesn’t mean he isn’t good enough to beat Travis Lutter. On the other hand, I saw Travis Lutter mount Anderson Silva, which means he could have easily won that fight. Travis Lutter is another TUF winner, but once again, TUF4 was before my “time” in MMA. I need to go back and watch all of the former TUFs. Either way, Travis Lutter had a big chance to take down Anderson Silva and he failed in two respects… a) not making weight and b) not finishing him when he had the mount. I think he’ll take this fight seriously, but Rich Franklin’s record is just too impressive for me to pick against him. I think this is going to be a really good fight but I’m going to go with Rich Franklin.

Matt Serra v Georges St-Pierre:

Man, I hate just going with the favorite because he’s the favorite … I like to have some level of reasoning behind my choice. But GSP just looks like an animal. I know that Serra knocked him out. And not only that, I love watching Matt Serra. He was brilliant on TUF6 in about 20 ways. He seems like a great coach/fighter/guy to be around and I think he has a great attitude. But… GSP is like a freak of nature. Matt Serra is the powerful short guy from Long Island going against a physical and fighting specimen. I have to believe that GSP will win this even though I am really rooting for Serra. I’d love to see him beat GSP again and then take on Matt Hughes — assuming the UFC puts Hughes next in line at 170. Speaking of other fighters at 170, when are we going to get to see Carlos Condit take on some of the 170 lbers in the UFC? He’s been rolling in the WEC, let’s see him face a GSP-type and see how he stacks up.

I don’t know enough about Nate Quarry or Kalib Starnes to say how their fight will turn out.

Anyway, I can’t wait for Saturday.

I know this is a few weeks old, but I didn’t see it until today. I’m sure some blog readers haven’t seen it either.

Apparently there was a House hearing on Wed April 2nd about the enforcement of the UIGEA.

Feds say Internet gambling law ambiguous

I think it’s kind of predictable that this stuff would happen. It’s too hard to regulate the internet with good laws, let alone vague, contradictory and impossible-to-enforce laws that are meant to appease a tiny fraction of the US population that actively opposes online gaming.

Also, here is the YouTube video of part of the hearing:

Thanks to the PPA for putting that on YouTube.

I did end up getting a torrent invite from a very kind blog reader. I am now a member of a TV torrent site. I know that it’s illegal piracy, but I’m in Costa Rica most of the time now. It’s hard to get American TV shows when you live out of the country and, without time-shifting devices like TiVo, it’s impossible to watch what you want to watch. So I’m left with BitTorrent and AppleTV (and sometimes the websites of the networks, but some of them won’t let you watch shows on a non-US IP address) to get what I want to watch.

I wouldn’t mind belonging to a movie torrent site too because a lot of movies here are dubbed into Spanish and it can be dangerous to go to some theaters at night. Some movie rental stores get pirated versions of new movies, but the DVD and recording quality is pretty spotty.

Regarding something like music, I’m in pretty good shape there. At least the Amazon MP3 store lets me buy what I want to hear… it’s pretty much the only form of copyrighted entertainment material that I use 100% legally. And that’s because the record industry has basically been forced into a reasonable distribution arrangement. I’m the perfect example of someone who WANTS to pay for this stuff. If I have the option to pay or not pay, I always pay. But if I want to watch The Ultimate Fighter (great first two episodes in Season 7 btw) I’m left with no choice but to download it on BitTorrent. I simply don’t know of a way to pay for the content without waiting for the DVD — which is something that I’m unwilling to do.

Anyway, moving on… speaking of MMA. I keep getting more and more addicted to this stuff. For the uninitiated, MMA is mixed martial arts. It’s basically boxing, ju jitsu, muay thai, wrestling and more all rolled into one. The big organizations are the UFC, WEC (owned by the same company as the UFC), PRIDE (no longer exists, also owned by the UFC parent company), EliteXC/Strikeforce, K-1, etc. There are a lot of them, but UFC is the biggest. Fighters are matched up by weight class, but they often come from different backgrounds. It’s common to see a Brazilian Ju Jitsu fighter (often fighters from Brazil have a ju jitsu background) matched up with an American with a wrestling background. Lots of former NCAA champion wrestlers have gone on to become professional fighters in one of the various promotions.

Anyway, it’s really interesting to see styles collide and to see elite athletes compete on a pretty raw level. There are rules. No upkicks to the face (ie, while you’re on the ground, you can’t kick your opponent in the face), no hitting the back of the head, no eye gouging, no groin shots, etc. But the rules are pretty limited. For the most part, it’s just about finding a way to beat the crap out of the other guy. Fights end either when a ref calls a fight because one fighter is in danger of serious injury (ie, his arm is about to get broken if he’s in an armbar and he isn’t tapping) or when a fighter submits. You can submit either by tapping out or by verbally stating that you submit. Of course, fights can also go to a decision in a similar manner to boxing.

I’m still relatively new to MMA. I’ve been watching as much as I can to familiarize myself with styles and fighters. I also am interested in learning as much about the history of MMA as possible. So I’ll be reading a lot, watching a lot and I’m sure I’ll be posting about it a lot too.

Who out there is an MMA fan?

As I’m sure many of you are aware, there has been a new PocketFives.com design up for a week or so. It has had its fair share of trouble (slow page loads, etc), but I’m pretty sure it’s a good thing for the site in the long-run once the major kinks are worked out.

However, I’m not really here to post about the new design specifically. I’m here to talk about something funny that I found:

You may notice that the new P5s URLs do not have the crazy hex code in them anymore. Now they contain the actual post title, minus various special characters that can’t be in a URL. However, that means that some changes needed to made. What if a post had the same title? You can’t have two posts with the same URL. So the development team made it so any new post would generate a unique id on the end of the title.

For instance, a new post with the title “lilholdem954″ might have a big number on the end of it if you made it today because there have problem been lots of posts with his screen name as the only part of the title minus the special characters.

I know what you’re thinking: “Get to the funny part dumbass.” Okay, okay. The funny part is that the “FTP Down” thread from this evening ends with a 14! (see here). That means there have been 13 threads posted before with the text “FTP Down”.

That really says a lot about how retarded FTP is. I have a friend who works there and even though I haven’t seen the guy in person except for when I met him in AC over three years ago, I consider him to be a pretty good friend and he’s done me some pretty major favors over the years. He’s a great employee for their site and blah blah blah. But the site is terrible in some very significant areas! First, they treat their affiliates like crap. The stunts they pull over and over to fatten their own wallets are just borderline absurd. I know of many affiliates who have pulled FTP and are so angered that they’ll never promote them again. While it’s questionable whether that will even really impact FTP, it’s never good business to piss off your business partners by making silly rules. Second, the software is really unstable. How is that possible!?! Why on earth would a company that stands to lose six or seven figures due to every crash have software that is even remotely unstable? They can afford to hire a small army of programmers and testers and it would still be better than having the server crash routinely. It’s really pathetic to watch the 2nd biggest site in the world have such significant software performance problems.

Anyway, that’s my rant of the night. Congrats to Memphis and KU on advancing the the National Championship game and good luck to Memphis.