Thursday, March 24, 2016
Fight recap: My "thrilla" in Manila
Friday, March 18, 2016
Manila observations, weight-cut, and 24 hours to the fight
(Preamble: If you only came here to get info on how to watch the fight, scroll to the bottom of this post.)
I have been in Manila a little over 24 hours now, and I will be fighting in a little over 24 hours as well. It's the first time in about five years since I've been here. The last time I was here, I made the final table of the APPT event, so I saw nothing other than the hotel and the casino. The time before, I stayed at the house of a jiujitsu friend, and we shuttled back and forth between the competition and his family's mansion. So suffice it to say I'm not really knowledgeable about the city, nor am I now.
Brief (tourist) Manila observations
I have been in Manila a little over 24 hours now, and I will be fighting in a little over 24 hours as well. It's the first time in about five years since I've been here. The last time I was here, I made the final table of the APPT event, so I saw nothing other than the hotel and the casino. The time before, I stayed at the house of a jiujitsu friend, and we shuttled back and forth between the competition and his family's mansion. So suffice it to say I'm not really knowledgeable about the city, nor am I now.
Brief (tourist) Manila observations
Monday, March 14, 2016
Fight fight! Saturday! Saturday!
I'm excited to announce my next fight! And it's happening in six days!
The story of this one is a bit of a wild one. I was originally supposed to fight this weekend in Hong Kong for Impi World Series, but that event got cancelled and postponed to August. So then I was offered a fight in Underground Battle MMA in the Philippines. I wasn't super-excited about cutting down to 125 lbs in the Philippines away from the comforts of home, so I turned it down.
A new guy started training at our gym in the meantime, and he accepted the fight. But he effectively pulled out of the fight over the weekend, so I decided hey, I'm in shape, I've been training for months without a fight, and I'm only 139 lbs right now anyway. Fighters fight, so let's do this shit. I called up our contact, and here we are.
The story of this one is a bit of a wild one. I was originally supposed to fight this weekend in Hong Kong for Impi World Series, but that event got cancelled and postponed to August. So then I was offered a fight in Underground Battle MMA in the Philippines. I wasn't super-excited about cutting down to 125 lbs in the Philippines away from the comforts of home, so I turned it down.
A new guy started training at our gym in the meantime, and he accepted the fight. But he effectively pulled out of the fight over the weekend, so I decided hey, I'm in shape, I've been training for months without a fight, and I'm only 139 lbs right now anyway. Fighters fight, so let's do this shit. I called up our contact, and here we are.
Friday, March 11, 2016
PokerVIP AMA
I did an "AMA" for PokerVIP a few weeks ago, which was a lot of fun. A mixed bag of questions about MMA, mindset, and old school PokerStars.
The thread is locked now, but you can check it out at PokerVIP's forum here.
The thread is locked now, but you can check it out at PokerVIP's forum here.
Friday, February 26, 2016
What are your predictions about data storage?
I'm in the market for a new computer, likely another 15-inch Macbook Pro Retina, and so the question arises whether I want to pay an extra $500 (USD) to upgrade from 500 MB flash memory to 1 TB.
Here's what my usage looks like now. I'm pretty full, but there's a bunch of movies I could delete and not miss. So I think I could easily be fine if I were better at hard drive housekeeping.
This gets me to thinking: what about the next 3-5 years of storage?
Here's what my usage looks like now. I'm pretty full, but there's a bunch of movies I could delete and not miss. So I think I could easily be fine if I were better at hard drive housekeeping.
This gets me to thinking: what about the next 3-5 years of storage?
Wednesday, December 9, 2015
UFC weekend preview/rewatches
Like every MMA fan, I'm super-stoked about the UFC weekend going on. I've watched a lot of video in an attempt to handicap some fights that interest me. Instead of giving who I think are good value, I will just highlight some style matchups that I think are interesting. I doubt anyone is interested in my tout service anyway after I said that I laid the -800 on Ronda Rousey against Holly Holm. I suspect/hope that will lead to a decline in people asking me to handicap fights in a quantitative manner.
Thursday, November 5, 2015
The end of the online poker pro?
In the beginning of online poker, there was no rakeback. There was only rake. In the days of Planet, Paradise, and Party Poker, no one thought that 5% to $3 was a great deal, but hey, it was the same or less than most brick-and-mortar rooms were charging. It didn't really matter; the games were so good. If you played poker seriously in the era where Chris Moneymaker, Greg Raymer, Joe Hachem or Jamie Gold were reigning world champions, then money was falling out of the sky and landing in your bank account.
It was, of course, the affiliate system that led to what we now know as rakeback. Poker sites wanted more players, so they turned to affiliates. Savvy affiliates said that they wanted lifetime value players, not to be played a flat CPA. Savvy players then realized that affiliates were making buckets of money from the rake they were paying, and in turn they demanded rakeback.
PokerStars was intelligent in proactively doing an end-around this process. They knew that people were hungry for rakeback and that they would circumvent the rules to get it, so they created the VIP program. And their tiered system was brilliant. The more you played, the higher your status. The higher your status, the more you earned. So you wanted to play more and more, a positive feedback loop that never seemed to end. At least, until this week. This week, Stars pulled out the rug on its highest volume players. With its announced VIP changes to 2016, PokerStars is being very obvious in what they want to do long-term. Stars no longer considers poker pros making 50k or more per year to be partners in their business. Rather the statement made is that poker pros are leeches on our games, parasites on our idyllic poker economy.
Pulling out the rug on the 2015 Supernova Elites in such a fashion is not something that sits well with me. From all indicators, these people entered into a quasi-contract with Stars that they would get an expected amount of effective rakeback for 2016. There certainly would not be the backlash that there is in the poker community right now if they announced these changes 12 months ahead of time. By announcing the changes so late in the year, they continued to make the revenue line look good for investors, keeping the stock price high. Who knows what the volume in 2015 would have looked like had they made this announcement in January? Stars is now under immense pressure from its players to pull back from their announced changes. I hope they do bow to that pressure, but don't be surprised if they don't. This isn't the Scheinberg era, folks.
In any case, the implications the new VIP program are huge. The death of the online poker pro has been predicted many times, but this one is as legit as it comes. It won't be an explosive implosion; the games will not suddenly dry up on January 1, 2016. But at least in the short term, there will be a significant contraction of the money available to win (across all limits) and the marginal pros won't survive. If you are an online poker pro, and you have not made at least 100k/year in the last two years, you should strongly consider applying for a real job somewhere. If you are an aspiring poker pro and haven't quite made the leap yet, you need to look long and hard about whether you really want to sign up for this grind. Stars' goal is to create an equilibrium where everyone is a small loser. It is an uphill battle when you are fighting against the most powerful organization in poker.
I have some further thoughts on how this will all shake down, but I'll have to save them for a Part 2. Tomorrow though I'll be talking about this more on this week's Pokercast (sponsored by the PokerStars VIP Club!) though, and hope to have that Part 2 up soon.
Edit: I want to clarify that with the exception of honouring its previously advertised 2016 commitments, I'm not taking a position on the rightness or wrongness of PokerStars devaluing their VIP program. They have the right (and responsibility) to control that program as they see fit and to maximize the long-term profits of their company. Stars does not owe poker players the right to make a living at their tables. They do, in my view, have a responsibility to deliver on the promises made to them in 2015. But aside from these commitments, I am not taking any sort of moral position on the changes.
It was, of course, the affiliate system that led to what we now know as rakeback. Poker sites wanted more players, so they turned to affiliates. Savvy affiliates said that they wanted lifetime value players, not to be played a flat CPA. Savvy players then realized that affiliates were making buckets of money from the rake they were paying, and in turn they demanded rakeback.
PokerStars was intelligent in proactively doing an end-around this process. They knew that people were hungry for rakeback and that they would circumvent the rules to get it, so they created the VIP program. And their tiered system was brilliant. The more you played, the higher your status. The higher your status, the more you earned. So you wanted to play more and more, a positive feedback loop that never seemed to end. At least, until this week. This week, Stars pulled out the rug on its highest volume players. With its announced VIP changes to 2016, PokerStars is being very obvious in what they want to do long-term. Stars no longer considers poker pros making 50k or more per year to be partners in their business. Rather the statement made is that poker pros are leeches on our games, parasites on our idyllic poker economy.
Pulling out the rug on the 2015 Supernova Elites in such a fashion is not something that sits well with me. From all indicators, these people entered into a quasi-contract with Stars that they would get an expected amount of effective rakeback for 2016. There certainly would not be the backlash that there is in the poker community right now if they announced these changes 12 months ahead of time. By announcing the changes so late in the year, they continued to make the revenue line look good for investors, keeping the stock price high. Who knows what the volume in 2015 would have looked like had they made this announcement in January? Stars is now under immense pressure from its players to pull back from their announced changes. I hope they do bow to that pressure, but don't be surprised if they don't. This isn't the Scheinberg era, folks.
In any case, the implications the new VIP program are huge. The death of the online poker pro has been predicted many times, but this one is as legit as it comes. It won't be an explosive implosion; the games will not suddenly dry up on January 1, 2016. But at least in the short term, there will be a significant contraction of the money available to win (across all limits) and the marginal pros won't survive. If you are an online poker pro, and you have not made at least 100k/year in the last two years, you should strongly consider applying for a real job somewhere. If you are an aspiring poker pro and haven't quite made the leap yet, you need to look long and hard about whether you really want to sign up for this grind. Stars' goal is to create an equilibrium where everyone is a small loser. It is an uphill battle when you are fighting against the most powerful organization in poker.
I have some further thoughts on how this will all shake down, but I'll have to save them for a Part 2. Tomorrow though I'll be talking about this more on this week's Pokercast (sponsored by the PokerStars VIP Club!) though, and hope to have that Part 2 up soon.
Edit: I want to clarify that with the exception of honouring its previously advertised 2016 commitments, I'm not taking a position on the rightness or wrongness of PokerStars devaluing their VIP program. They have the right (and responsibility) to control that program as they see fit and to maximize the long-term profits of their company. Stars does not owe poker players the right to make a living at their tables. They do, in my view, have a responsibility to deliver on the promises made to them in 2015. But aside from these commitments, I am not taking any sort of moral position on the changes.
Saturday, October 17, 2015
The WSOP didn't earn my business today
Context. Today is 1B of WSOPE event 8, the 1000+100 Euro turbo event which was scheduled (for weeks) to start at noon local time
. This tweet showed up at 11:58am.
I want to express my disappointment in Jack’s decision to change a noon start time, and announce it at 11:58am — two minutes before cards were supposed to be in the air. According to Jack, only 50 players were registered at noon for the turbo, leading him and other management to believe that they must have thought it was a 4pm start.
I think making a last-minute change to the start time based on a guess that players simply misread the schedule is a terrible idea. Here are just a few reasons why:
1) Many pros/regulars tend to buy in late for a 1k event. I was literally getting in a cab when I saw the announcement and was planning to show up around 12:20pm.
2) Many recreational/infrequent players don’t necessarily follow Jack on Twitter, and would not know of the change. They would only see the website and/or the print material distributed in the Spielbank casino.
3) The change was announced so late (again, 11:58am) that even if you do follow Jack, you likely couldn’t do anything about it.
4) Jack himself sent out a reminder tweet (now deleted) at about 11:15am reminding people that the start time was noon and late reg closes at 3:45pm.
5) Even if there *are* a great number of people who thought the actual start time was 4pm (and I dispute this is the case), those people would have until 3:45pm to register anyway.
6) 50 players is actually an awful lot to go tell “sorry, go take a hike for four hours”. I also suspect a very high percentage of these 50 players are recreational players as opposed to influential circuit regulars. In general, I think recreational players get screwed over a lot by pandering to vocal pros and it’s one of the things I like least about poker.
I think it would be hypocritical of me to be this critical and still patronize the event, so I’m choosing to skip the event. I both enjoy playing in turbo events, and feel I have good ev in them, so my decision is certainly harming me more than them. I do feel like it is a bad look for them. But more importantly, I feel like an ass if I take the time to do all this complaining and then hand over my 1100 Euros anyway like an obedient sheep. I love the WSOP but not more than not appearing to be a hypocrite. Today I simply don’t feel like the WSOP has earned my business. So instead of playing, I’m choosing to skip the event and instead take my girlfriend (who patiently puts up with my bitching about poker tournaments, among my various other character flaws) to a much-deserved dinner and night out.
See you guys tomorrow in the main.
. This tweet showed up at 11:58am.
Receiving lots of inquiries from players unaware of start time. New start time now 4pm for event #8 turbo nlhe. Apologize for confusion. RT
— Jack Effel (@WSOPTD) October 17, 2015
— Jack Effel (@WSOPTD) October 17, 2015
When I responded that I was already en route and asked when this change happened, Jack responded:
Go back. We had to move time. It appeared everyone fell asleep. Sorry Terrence. https://t.co/hhKxYVVTnp
— Jack Effel (@WSOPTD) October 17, 2015
I want to express my disappointment in Jack’s decision to change a noon start time, and announce it at 11:58am — two minutes before cards were supposed to be in the air. According to Jack, only 50 players were registered at noon for the turbo, leading him and other management to believe that they must have thought it was a 4pm start.
I think making a last-minute change to the start time based on a guess that players simply misread the schedule is a terrible idea. Here are just a few reasons why:
1) Many pros/regulars tend to buy in late for a 1k event. I was literally getting in a cab when I saw the announcement and was planning to show up around 12:20pm.
2) Many recreational/infrequent players don’t necessarily follow Jack on Twitter, and would not know of the change. They would only see the website and/or the print material distributed in the Spielbank casino.
3) The change was announced so late (again, 11:58am) that even if you do follow Jack, you likely couldn’t do anything about it.
4) Jack himself sent out a reminder tweet (now deleted) at about 11:15am reminding people that the start time was noon and late reg closes at 3:45pm.
5) Even if there *are* a great number of people who thought the actual start time was 4pm (and I dispute this is the case), those people would have until 3:45pm to register anyway.
6) 50 players is actually an awful lot to go tell “sorry, go take a hike for four hours”. I also suspect a very high percentage of these 50 players are recreational players as opposed to influential circuit regulars. In general, I think recreational players get screwed over a lot by pandering to vocal pros and it’s one of the things I like least about poker.
I think it would be hypocritical of me to be this critical and still patronize the event, so I’m choosing to skip the event. I both enjoy playing in turbo events, and feel I have good ev in them, so my decision is certainly harming me more than them. I do feel like it is a bad look for them. But more importantly, I feel like an ass if I take the time to do all this complaining and then hand over my 1100 Euros anyway like an obedient sheep. I love the WSOP but not more than not appearing to be a hypocrite. Today I simply don’t feel like the WSOP has earned my business. So instead of playing, I’m choosing to skip the event and instead take my girlfriend (who patiently puts up with my bitching about poker tournaments, among my various other character flaws) to a much-deserved dinner and night out.
See you guys tomorrow in the main.
Sunday, August 30, 2015
An "unlucky" injury
I've been forced to pull out of my September 11 fight due to an injury.
There are so many thoughts that go through your head when you have an injury right at the end of training camp. The most tempting, the most pernicious, is "fuck, what bad luck."
It's a dangerous thought because it's partly true. You do need some luck to survive a training camp without a major injury.
Poker players know that losers blame bad luck when they lose, and call themselves geniuses when they win.
Winners know that while you can't control the luck, you can do everything possible to stack the odds in your favour.
MMA training camps are hard things. The best way to train for a fight is to simulate a fight. A fight is a mess of fists, feet, knees, elbows flying all over the place while two guys tangle themselves up in a struggle to control the other guy's arms, legs, heads, and spines. And the best way to train for a fight is to find people who are as good or better than you at all the chaotic punching, kicking, and limb-tangling, and try to fight off their attacks.
If you don't train hard, you don't get better. If you train too hard, you get hurt. It's a hard tightrope to walk. Athletes and coaches always want to do more. The great sprinting coach Charlie Francis always said that he spends 90% of his time holding athletes back and only 10% of his time pushing them to do more. Balancing overtraining and undertraining is a hard task; there's no magic test or formula that tells you what to do.
It really sucks to pull out of a fight two weeks before it, right as training should be tapering off. I was very much dedicated to this training camp. I invested hours and hours into my mental and physical training and I felt like this was going to be the best iteration of me in the cage, ever. And now I don't get to prove that to myself. It's rough.
You'll notice I haven't talked about the details of how I got hurt. That's because it doesn't matter. I could blame this, that, or the other, but the blame lies with me. Maybe it was because I didn't warm up properly. Maybe it was because I hadn't rested and recovered enough for that session. Maybe it was because I didn't have the mental focus in that moment. Maybe I should have asked the training partner to take down the intensity. But the bottom line is that I have to look in the mirror and say that I'm injured because of me, because of decisions that I made. It's my body, it's my athletic career, and at the end of the day, I have to take responsibility.
There are so many thoughts that go through your head when you have an injury right at the end of training camp. The most tempting, the most pernicious, is "fuck, what bad luck."
It's a dangerous thought because it's partly true. You do need some luck to survive a training camp without a major injury.
Poker players know that losers blame bad luck when they lose, and call themselves geniuses when they win.
Winners know that while you can't control the luck, you can do everything possible to stack the odds in your favour.
MMA training camps are hard things. The best way to train for a fight is to simulate a fight. A fight is a mess of fists, feet, knees, elbows flying all over the place while two guys tangle themselves up in a struggle to control the other guy's arms, legs, heads, and spines. And the best way to train for a fight is to find people who are as good or better than you at all the chaotic punching, kicking, and limb-tangling, and try to fight off their attacks.
If you don't train hard, you don't get better. If you train too hard, you get hurt. It's a hard tightrope to walk. Athletes and coaches always want to do more. The great sprinting coach Charlie Francis always said that he spends 90% of his time holding athletes back and only 10% of his time pushing them to do more. Balancing overtraining and undertraining is a hard task; there's no magic test or formula that tells you what to do.
It really sucks to pull out of a fight two weeks before it, right as training should be tapering off. I was very much dedicated to this training camp. I invested hours and hours into my mental and physical training and I felt like this was going to be the best iteration of me in the cage, ever. And now I don't get to prove that to myself. It's rough.
You'll notice I haven't talked about the details of how I got hurt. That's because it doesn't matter. I could blame this, that, or the other, but the blame lies with me. Maybe it was because I didn't warm up properly. Maybe it was because I hadn't rested and recovered enough for that session. Maybe it was because I didn't have the mental focus in that moment. Maybe I should have asked the training partner to take down the intensity. But the bottom line is that I have to look in the mirror and say that I'm injured because of me, because of decisions that I made. It's my body, it's my athletic career, and at the end of the day, I have to take responsibility.
Wednesday, August 12, 2015
REMATCH! Chan vs Wasuk II
A little over two months ago, I fought Ali Wasuk and won a unanimous decision. Last time out, because of new rules recently instituted in British Columbia and because Ali had fewer than three fights, the fight had to be conducted without strikes to the face on the ground. Now that Ali has three fights, he is eligible to fight with "ground and pound", the trademark of MMA.
Apparently, he feels that it will be a completely different fight with ground and pound, and he has asked for a rematch.
I am more than happy to grant him this rematch. While I admire his heart, I think this is a poor decision for him. I'm sure he was motivated by his loss back in April and will be training even harder this time around.
But I am extremely motivated by the idea that he thinks he will win under the more complete MMA rule set. I believe, however, that this gives me an even bigger advantage to press. This time, I intend to finish the fight by KO or submission, and I am committed to not allowing it to go the distance.
So that's the setup. The full fight card is here, and tickets will be on sale soon. As last time, if you do purchase tickets online, please do e-mail your receipt to jgolshani@yahoo.com. This helps support me for future events. Thanks!
Apparently, he feels that it will be a completely different fight with ground and pound, and he has asked for a rematch.
I am more than happy to grant him this rematch. While I admire his heart, I think this is a poor decision for him. I'm sure he was motivated by his loss back in April and will be training even harder this time around.
But I am extremely motivated by the idea that he thinks he will win under the more complete MMA rule set. I believe, however, that this gives me an even bigger advantage to press. This time, I intend to finish the fight by KO or submission, and I am committed to not allowing it to go the distance.
So that's the setup. The full fight card is here, and tickets will be on sale soon. As last time, if you do purchase tickets online, please do e-mail your receipt to jgolshani@yahoo.com. This helps support me for future events. Thanks!
Monday, July 27, 2015
Does grappling work "in the streets"?
Two short stories about grappling.
Yesterday I was at an open training session. I was training with my cousin and had him in a side control (wrestling pin) position. In an effort to escape, he started jamming his elbow in to my throat. This is actually a fairly effective move to get someone off of you. Nevertheless, we both had a good chuckle about it, and I threw a few friendly knees to his ribcage to let him know that I could also be mean if I wanted to.
My cousin and I have a good healthy training relationship and we often do these types of “dick moves” to one another. We’re never trying to injure one another, but we definitely do play rough, generally rougher than we would against other training partners.
Five minutes later, the tables were turned. My cousin was tired and I started getting dominant positions and doing dick things. Grinding my chin into his nose or my forearm into his ear — all in good fun, of course.
Then this morning, I read a Facebook post from a BJJ training partner in Hong Kong. Apparently some road rager freaked out, slammed on the brakes in front of him, and attempted to provoke a fight with him. The BJJ guy double legged him and got to a dominant position. The aggressor attempted to bite, scratch and eye gouge the BJJ guy, but my friend held him down until the cops arrived, neutralizing him without throwing a punch or causing him any bit of harm.
The key takeaway from this is to be wary of the notion that grappling or MMA is ineffective “in the streets”. While it’s true that a well-placed eye gouge or groin shot can cause series damage, it’s pretty hard to do these things when you’re pinned helplessly to the ground. It turns out that the best way to learn how to fight dirty is simply to learn how to fight.
Yesterday I was at an open training session. I was training with my cousin and had him in a side control (wrestling pin) position. In an effort to escape, he started jamming his elbow in to my throat. This is actually a fairly effective move to get someone off of you. Nevertheless, we both had a good chuckle about it, and I threw a few friendly knees to his ribcage to let him know that I could also be mean if I wanted to.
My cousin and I have a good healthy training relationship and we often do these types of “dick moves” to one another. We’re never trying to injure one another, but we definitely do play rough, generally rougher than we would against other training partners.
Then this morning, I read a Facebook post from a BJJ training partner in Hong Kong. Apparently some road rager freaked out, slammed on the brakes in front of him, and attempted to provoke a fight with him. The BJJ guy double legged him and got to a dominant position. The aggressor attempted to bite, scratch and eye gouge the BJJ guy, but my friend held him down until the cops arrived, neutralizing him without throwing a punch or causing him any bit of harm.
The key takeaway from this is to be wary of the notion that grappling or MMA is ineffective “in the streets”. While it’s true that a well-placed eye gouge or groin shot can cause series damage, it’s pretty hard to do these things when you’re pinned helplessly to the ground. It turns out that the best way to learn how to fight dirty is simply to learn how to fight.
Wednesday, June 3, 2015
Fight recap video
Trying out something new this time. In the past, I've written lengthy blog posts about my pre and post fight. But this time, there were so many people who watched my fight on the live stream that didn't know what were going on and had a lot of questions to ask.
For them, I've posted a video with commentary. Check it out! (Make sure you have annotations ON.)
Comments and questions welcomed, encouraged, desired!
For them, I've posted a video with commentary. Check it out! (Make sure you have annotations ON.)
Comments and questions welcomed, encouraged, desired!
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