Chris Hadfield

As you may or may not know, I love watching NASA television while playing online poker. In fact I will check out anything to do with space to keep me fresh and interested while grinding away on a poker site to stop me getting a rush of blood to the head and doing something stupid. 

Doing something stupid comes easily to me as I do have a low threshold level especially when I am losing. I have been known to turn from insanely tight to completely ‘loosey goosey’ in a second because something annoyed me or I got seriously bored. With the opium of online TV such as NASA it can calm me down and get me into a positive frame of mind when sports trading or playing poker.

The only problem I do get is when Chris Hadfield does his ‘Village People Reject’ routine and starts singing in that weird voice of his. It is all good fun and I would rather have him than some dullard with all the charisma of a cod fillet. 

Chris Hadfield is coming back to Earth today and it will be funny to see if his David Bowie song ‘Space Oddity’ does really well in the charts now that he can do some real gigs and personal appearance. Maybe he could be backed by The Village People as he does not look out of place one little bit. Obviously his role would be astronaut and this could be a major move in making space exploration more popular and funny and he has the moustache already.

Space Oddity

Village People- “Macho Man” (Merv Griffin Show 1979)

Euro Millions

OK lets be serious, I would rather lay my chances of winning the lottery than backing it! The most I have ever won is a tenner and that was from purchasing multiple tickets. However, I am so fascinated by roll-overs that I keep my beady eye on the lottery to see when there is multiple roll-overs so I can then indulge my natural risk taking tendencies and have a flutter.

Why do I think it is wise to have a flutter when there is a roll-over? Well by then I am getting the true odds for my pound. Yes, the odds of winning the Euro Millions lottery are 1 in 116531800 or 116,531,799/1 against you winning. So if the prize is over £116,531,799 then I am getting the true odds of winning with the bonus of having the consolation winnings – which can be substantial thrown in! By sticking to this system it stops me playing the lottery thereby saving money and if I do get lucky well, happy days!

The fact that I am more likely to be struck by lightning, twice than win on the Euro Millions is neither here nor there. It gives me a chance to indulge my betting instincts with a degree of rationale that nullify the maxim that the lottery is ‘…a tax on stupidity…’!

As for winning the lottery, wow what a dream that would be. The first thing I would do is fly into space. I love the cosmos and everything about it. The next thing I would do is give the 300 people I like the most £100,000 each and tell them never to ask me for money ever again! I would then stick half of the money left into a trust fund to help poor people get physics education and the other half I would blow in a death wish of hedonism and debauchery. We are all going to die so at least enjoy the death process. 

As explained this is just a dream but sometimes long shots do come in and hopefully one day my quest for the true odds pays off.

The Magical Tipster

Well Cheltenham has come and The Magical Tipster has started where he left off last year with another winning day. 3 winner out of 6 with prices of 5/1, 8/15 and 16/1 making a grand total of £18.50 in profit! This wil make the rest of the week a risk free betting with profits already locked in.

We at pokerknave.com wish that a Cheltenham Festival happened every week, life would be really easy. Even the Villan had a not so bad day getting 2 winners which mean between the two old rivals they had 5 winners out of 6.

The only person who did not make the markwas new boy on the block Gizmo who only managed a second. But his method of picking winners is a bit suspect and he will fluke a winner quite soon.

Phil Taylor - World Champion for 16th time

…..yes of course it is! The problem with darts is image. The game of darts in the UK is associated with pubs, cigarettes and fat men, The main players in darts do not look lean and mean, they look old and bloated so they do not represent the image of a demi-god which sportsmen tend to represent since the Greeks held the Olympics as a religious ceremony.

With Phil Taylor the man who has dominated the sport of darts for the last 20 years, you basically have Muhammed Ali, Pele, Steve Redgrave, Bill Shoemaker and Jahangir Khan in one. There has never been a darts player who dominated the sport as much as he has. The consistency of his rule is so total that The Magical Tipster was in epilepsy of betting when he saw his betting price.

The problem that critics have of darts is that they miss the point of darts. Darts is about hand eye co-ordination much as shooting or archery is about hand eye co-ordination. The critics miss the point about the physical aspects as well. It does take a lot to keep the whole body and breathing in control. Just like a sniper needs to control the body to get the right shot. 

Unlike poker or chess the physical element of darts is mental and physical, separate and joined. You need to have both when playing darts. The beer bellies and tattoos associated with darts may look bad but you do not need to use your abdomens, you need to focus on your throwing arm, eyes and stance. Hopefully the rest of the body will work to keep the throw of the darts perfect. 

In the past the ruling sports body did try to get to grips with its image but I believe when Phil Taylor feel out with the rest of the darts committee and created his own association they kind of abandoned the image change except for the drinking beer and smoking cigarettes on the oche. If you do not think of darts as a sport just try and hit 20 x 20′s in a row. It is damn difficult. 

Barack Obama 2012 victory speech

Thank god the USA step back from the brink of insanity where there was legitimate rape, parallel universes and 47% of people who are not worth bothering about. Poker Totty Michelle G was the winner amongst the political Poker Tottys. Her choice of Barack Obama was bang on the money although Poker Totty Shahna came closer that I personally thought of being the winner.

However, the big time winner is Nate Silver who predicted the election right down to how many electoral college each candidate would get and who would win each state.  In my view he can now write his own check when it comes to using polls to determine political debate although I am still reluctant to use solely statistical analysis as the question asked can elicit the answer required. With that in mind Nate Silver was challenged by the might of the Republican machine including Karl Rove and he won big time!

With the US election out of the way, now we have the Chinese process in picking the new leader and the stark difference in how the process of picking the new leader is amazing. In China no one outside the Communist party leadership really knows what is going on. There was believed political machinations when Bo Xilai and his wife Gu Kailai got involved in murder of Neil Heywood and political corruption….apparently!

This ‘election’ in China is just as important to the World as the election in the US so we will await to see how the personalities will emerge to run the World for the next 4 to 10 years.

Funnily enough there is a ‘Chinese’ style election going on within The Church of England with a pile of money being poured on Justin Welby to be the next Archbishop of Canterbury. It seems even in the realm of spirituality, insider trading is just as prevalent as it is on any reality TV betting market.  

By the way, what is it with Florida that they cannot do a simple task like holding an election? The clear attempt at voter suppression has gone too far and it is about time that the sensible citizens within that state do something about this immoral acts. As this post is being written a full day after the election has finished Florid still have not declared a winner!!!!

Poker Totty Michelle G supports Obama

This 2012 election to get the next President of the USA is truly a wonder to behold. The two important issues are 1. Which one of the Poker Tottys will be on the winning side? At the moment the polls are showing it for Poker Totty Michelle G, although Poker Totty Shahna is not in bad shape with the possibility of a successful voter suppression campaign in various states.

The second big question is whether Nate Silver will augment his position as the greatest polling guru of his generation? For a very long time Nate Silver has been calling this for Obama with 80% certainty. This has enraged Romney’s supporters who have been questioning the validity of the polls, the numbers, the methodology, media bias the lot. 

In fact when I replied to a post about Romney winning in a landslide I suggested to the person that he should take advantage of the 2/1 widely available on a Romney win. A reply I got not only intrigued me but completely surprised me and I had to reply that yes I was wrong about the 2/1, it should be more than that and right now Romney is 3/1+ to win! When was the last time that with overwhelming  certainty of an outcome can you get 3/1? If the Romney activist are so convinced that Romney is cruising to victory, why not take up the chance to QUADRUPLE YOUR MONEY in 24 hours?

Obviously it is rubbish they are talking about and going from forum to forum typing stuff which they clearly do not believe in is both mindless and pointless, unless the rumours are true that some of the internet posters are being paid to write post. Clearly this happens with people who work in the SEO business but in the political world I would not be surprised that there are people being paid to write stuff and create a ‘internet buzz’ on whatever topic needing that buzz.

So at the moment Nate Silver is saying that Obama will win and will win with over 300 electoral votes and 50.6% of the popular vote. This is a big call but if he is right he can basically write his own check for any sort of polling work he wants to do in the future.

So while we wait to see how the Republicans try and steal the elections check out the last time such an audacious attempt to rob the people of their democratic right was successful with Radiohead’s ‘Hail to The Thief’. Bush v Gore 2000 will be an object lesson on why voting is very important and a crushing critique on those who want to make it more difficult for people to vote.

Radiohead – Hail to the Thief

1. 2 + 2 = 5 (The Lukewarm.) - 0:00

2. Sit Down. Stand Up. (Snakes and Ladders.) - 3:19

3. Sail to the Moon. (Brush The Cobwebs Out Of The Sky.) - 7:38

4. Backdrifts. (Honeymoon Is Over.) - 11:58

5. Go To Sleep. (Little Man Being Erased.) - 17:20

6. Where I End And You Begin. (The Sky Is Falling In.) - 20:41

7. We Suck Young Blood. (Your Time Is Up.) - 25:11

8. The Gloaming. (Softly Open Our Mouths In The Cold.) - 30:02

9. There There. (The Boney King Of Nowhere.) - 33:36

10. I Will. (No Man’s Land.) - 38:53

11. A Punchup At A Wedding. (No No No No No No No No.) - 40:55

12. Myxomatosis. (Judge, Jury And Executioner.) - 45:52

13. Scatterbrain. (As Dead As Leaves.) - 49:43

14. A Wolf At The Door. (It Girl. Rag Doll.) - 53:05

****Election 2012 Drinking Game****

If you do not want to listen to Radiohead and just want to watch the drama of the election, maybe you could spice it up with a drinking game based on the clichés and sound bites that will undoubtedly be mentioned. The phrases I will be drinking to are:

‘To close to call’ – 1/2 a shot (this will be a constant theme so you could be drunk in a hour).

‘In the battleground states’ – 1/2 a shot.

‘We call this for Romney’ – 1 shots.

‘We call this for Obama’ – 1 shot.

Happy drinking!

Ann Romney Look Of Disgust At Clint Eastwood

The look says it all! Is this the time that Ann Romney knew that the game was up? How can her husband carry on when all around him the sub-ordinates are actively positioning themselves to run for President in 2016? By positioning themselves for 2016 it is clear that they know in their heart that Mitt Romney cannot win 2012. Only the die hard Obama haters will continue because they would do anything to get rid of President Obama and nothing will stop their hatred not even the truth or facts. 

When Clint Eastwood made his improv monologue he looked and acted like a someone with a serious mental illness. This could not have been planned as a good thing, why would you let your biggest moment of your personal and political life be held by a guy who looked like he just got of bed and decided to wear an ill fitting suit to introduce the potential next President? Someone knew this and let it happened. They wanted to destroy the message of the Republican nominee and in effect the leader of the Republican party. 

Now I let you into a not so little secret, I wanted Rick Santorum to be the nominee because I had a small bet on him at massive odds. My thinking was that the Republican party have had a collective mental breakdown since Lehman’s Day 2008 when the banking system went into total collapse and the government was forced to do what they said they would never do and intervene into the markets to make sure the ATM’s still worked. If they didn’t then the whole economic system would have gone into meltdown and civil war would have broken out.

In effect they ripped up the doctrine of Ronald Regan and became a communist government – as they would see it! Their leader was George W Bush aided and abetted by the most right wing backroom staff ever, which was marshalled by Dick Cheney. This led to utter and complete confusion for many true believers and they just have not got over it. On top of that, the country then voted for a guy with the name Barack Hussein Obama to be the President which completely done their heads in and this all happened 40 years after Martin Luther King jr was assassinated. 

So after they gained some composure they set out to ‘take their country back’. It meant doing anything and everything to destroy Obama and bring in someone to restore order and the Ancien Régime – as they see it! However, some within the party knew that Obama is a formidable campaigner and did not want to take on an incumbent with the mass appeal of Obama. They know that the country was left in a disastrous state that even Hank Paulson told George W. Bush to give him the trillions of dollars, but don’t ask any questions about what he was going to do with it. Why, because it would not have been very popular and would cause resentment and not entirely resolve the problem with the economy. 

When the primaries got started it was clear that all the sensible candidates would not take part. Jeb Bush, Chris Christie, Mitch Daniels and even Paul Ryan, who I had a small bet on in the beginning, trading out when it was profitable. So the only half sensible candidate was Mitt Romney the rest were clowns and performance artist. The only one that could be sensible was Rick Santorum but his politics was so conservative that it was seen as a turn off to the independents.

Now looking back I bet those who really believe in banning rape in all cases and even going back to the gold standard wish they had gone for Rick Santorum. Hence this is why I think that Mitt Romney is not leading the party, the party is leading him. He is not in control of his party. Apparatchiks are running the show, that’s why Paul Ryan could go on stage and blatantly lie and not produce any ideas or policy for the public. Mitt Romney cannot tell Paul Ryan what to do. 

After the disastrous foreign tour and now a disastrous convention, any pretence that Romney is fit to lead goes straight out of the window. He is the nominee in name only. So this is the question. If Ann Romney want to see her husband completely and totally humiliated then she will let him continue in the process – not humiliated by not winning, but demeaned by the people on the inside who want him to lose? The country will not be put right in another four years. Even Paul Ryan’s plan is talking about a 20+ year period before it will be in credit. So the objectivist and others around him do not mind Obama being in charge for four more years as he is more or less doing what they would do.

Mitt Romney cannot be happy with the lies that are said in his name. It is so blatant and unwarranted. Even the joke about Obama’s birth must have been stomach churning. The only person that can stop Mitt Romney is his wife. She has to tell him the truth about what is going on and tell him that let Paul Ryan take the the fight to Obama without him. One way or another he must get out. Anything else will destroy him as a human being as he cannot in his heart want to be the guard that lets the lunatics take over the asylum. My bet on Paul Ryan still stands!

Since September 16th 2008, the cloak that served to keep prying eyes away from ‘The Masters of the Universe’ was blown wide open. As in the film ‘The Wizard of Oz’ we got to see what lay behind the impressive power that the bankers exude, and, lo and behold it was conmen, thieves, gangsters, hustlers, sharks and generally morally corrupt individuals having a whale of a time playing roulette with other peoples lives.

These people came up with ever more ‘sophisticated’ and mathematically brilliant formulas for backing either red or black for substantial money. The fact that these formulas and systems kept on messing up was beside the point. The ‘engineers’ behind this charade were so clever that it didn’t matter if they were wrong.

All the time the we poor suckers sat at the sidelines marvelling on how brilliant these people were that we had to give them a bonus or a pension, or even give them a massive pay off for losing large sums of money.  We silly spectators did question that losing £24 billion should not be rewarded by getting £600,000 per year pension, but we were told to shut up and sit down because if you want the best you must pay for it even if the best is rubbish!

So on went the game and for a while people questioned but were kept quiet by a simple tactic called ‘divide and conquer’. It is the oldest trick in the book but it still works and over in places around the World people voted to cut stuff that went to them so as to raise money to pay for the mistakes of the bankers. Whole countries such as Greece were told to shut up and pay up and the Greeks voted to do this. Obviously the alternative was a row in which those paid by the bankers would blame, immigrants, gays, people with blue hair any one that is different for the troubles, and, us suckers did just that.

I have nearly always argued that you should never give a sucker an even break! But sometimes as a sucker it would be good to get the heads up. So every now and then when playing cards I will actually show my cards after a hand just to let them know if there guess was right or wrong. So straight away I have broken two rules of never giving a sucker an even break, also breaking the rule about giving away free information.

However, you must think why would I give away free information and therefore giving the sucker of even money chance to have guess right? Maybe I was giving false information or trying to get my opponent rattled and get him on ’tilt’. 

The bankers are blatantly having there wicked ways with us and we seem hell bent to let the screw us to the ground and keep on screwing us until we are dead then they will screw our children and we accept this modern day kuli indenture as if it is the right and proper thing to do!

As you can see and understand, there is no need to accept this. All of this nonsense is bluff and  criminal. I can see where Karl Marx was going with this when he claimed the war against capital would start in an industrialized country, because, the citizens would likely be educated and could see through the bogus shenanigans forwarded by the bankers.

Humanity need to challenge and over throw this wicked system that forces future generation hard labour and servitude because some spotty faced individual decided to rig the interest rate or bet on a housing bubble or even tackled those increasingly complex derivatives which no one actually understood and could never figure out until all the computers crashed bringing down the system as Long-Term Capital Management did when it went into meltdown in September 1998.

So in just 14 short years we have seen mathematical models for trading crash and burn, whole banks having to be bailed out by governments and a load of banks headed by Barclays being found to have rigged the interest rate that banks use to charge each other.  No one seems to be going to prison or even being accounted for these problems. In fact most of the people involved get a nice fat bonus. 

Bob Diamond of Barclays’ Libor scandle is still looking to walk away with a years salary and bonus for presiding over a company that was fined over £200 million, for rigging the market!

In most scenarios when you mess up you lose your job and that’s that. With bankers when you lose your job you get paid off. It is beyond a joke now and something seriously needs to be done and done now!

Yes it is time for revolution and a complete change in the world wide banking system which means an end to all these weird and wonderful trading software and trading as we know it. It may seem like it’s Communism I am advocating but not all communistic ideas are wrong. The NHS is a great concept and is being replicated all over the World. That is a communistic idea in which everyone has equal access to health care. Therefore a world wide regulated banking system can be plausible since these financial cowboys are getting away with massive crimes.

The only gambling bankers should be doing is on a poker table or at a genuine casino, not on derivative trading using depositors money to facilitate the bets. When things go wrong in these trading systems its the public which picks up the bill not the banks.

The web of debt is hard to get free from

In the world of poker, there is no sentiment on the frailties of human nature. The whole point of poker is to seek out a person’s weakness and destroy that person, taking all his or her chips away from them. It is a simple concept and does not need much explanation. A brutal form of capitalism it maybe, but, at least it is fair and honest.

In general society there is no fair or honest way of having a capitalist society in which everyone has equal admission to the ‘table of business’. Some may say that it is alright that such a system exist and having any form of state intervention amounts to socialism and therefore it is wrong. 

I can see that point of view but if there is no intervention by a legitimate body that allows a fair trading regime and a court of fair judgement then society will be left to robber barons and other such forces which will ultimately validate the use of force to settle arguments. This will lead to the rich and powerful having their own way. 

Call me naive but there must be a way of bringing the philosophy of poker into the realm of life. Where everyone can at least have the minimum stake with which to play with. That minimum stake should cover the basic needs of a roof, food and health needs after that may the best person win.

This bring me into conflict with those who take a very extreme libertarian view that nothing should get in the way of ‘market forces’, because market forces are not some benign invisible entity that looks for the best in the market. It can be a destructive malevolent being out to wipe out the competition to replace it with an inferior product or service. Thats why we need regulation.  Just as in poker we need regulation for the well being of the game.

There is now one area that the UK government must regulate and regulate urgently and that is ‘payday loans’ which are just a charter for big business to act like two bit loan sharks. Rates of 4000% are not unheard and it is doing great damage to peoples lives. Usually people not bright enough to see that they are being ripped off mercilessly.

The web of debt that pay day loans encourage entangles the vulnerable and silly with ease and it is beginning to get out of hand. The government at the moment are willing to let it go on but sooner or later there will be a price to pay and it will not be pretty.

I have borrowed money in the past to bet on an event or to stake a situation in which I was going to earn. However, some gamblers I know are using pay day loans to bet on fixed odds betting terminal., which is like a crack addict going to a loan shark for a loan so that they can get a hit. It is a recipe for disaster and the morality of the government should not let it happen. 

One Penny

There is a fantastic new game which is doing the rounds ‘up Norf’ and it is called ‘In for a penny, in for a pound’. Basically it is a sweepstack betting system where you pick a ticket out whose number is between 1 and a 100. 

If you pick out 27, that ticket will cost you 27 pence. If you pick out ticket 85 it will cost you85 pence and so on untill all the tickets are chosen.

Once all the tickets have been brought then you will have exactly £50.50p. Then you have to pick out a ticket to provide a winner and the winning number gets £50 and the fifty pence goes into admin charges (usually a raffle book or pens etc).

The beauty of this game is that the over-round is 101%. There is almost a race type atmosphere when choosing the numbers, and, as long as people do not know if all or some of the large numbers are still in then it is worth a go.

It is important that the person who keeps tally of who drew what number is a person of principle and can be relied on to not give the game away by telling how many big or small numbers are left.

The fun happens when someone picks out a series of numbers either very low or very high. Techincally you could win with only paying 1p! This game should be weeping the nation soon as it is a great way of bringing people into the pub on a regular basis as you can do loads of these games over the week.