This is x-posted from my liquidpoker blog (panorama.liquidpoker.net). I felt it was somewhat relevant enough to possibly include it into my now inactive TL blog too. acronyms: ssnl = small stakes no limit, msnl = medium stakes no limit. fish = newbies, cts = poker version of jaedong/savior/bisu/(whatever sexy bonjwa). ======
My essay today will be about my relative perception of "happiness" and what it means for the rising poker player. It is extremely relative in that people have vastly different ideas of what real happiness is, so what I'm writing isn't the end all for everybody, but what holds true for me.
This is my happiness meter. Yours may differ tremendously. On one hand I have the fish who are just regular people who may (or may not) play poker for fun and donk around. On the other side of the spectrum exists Cole "thuglife" South (I'm pretty sure that's what the T stands for) who I imagine to be the happiest person on earth. Your range may vary, but no matter what we all (inevitably) have a meter of our own.
The basis of this entry dwells on my belief that Money does buy happiness, but a material happiness and not an immaterial one. I think immaterial happiness refers to the genuine pleasure of doing things we absolutely love, being with people we love, and overall living a fulfilled life style. Material happiness is the happiness derived from spending money outside of what is necessary. I feel that immaterial happiness is superior, but as poker players we succumb to material happiness and our end goal (to be like cts) is to acquire both.
When we begin to start making serious money (anywhere between 100-400nl), we make a trade off between these two forms of happiness. Jurollo from the 2p2 forums said in regards to true happiness, "I think the job of online poker alone makes a lot of us unhappy. Its isolationist in its very essence and cuts us off from the outside world to an extent which contributes to [feelings of unhappiness]." btw anyone willing to pursue the topic further should really check that thread out: http://archives1.twoplustwo.com/showflat.php?Cat=0&Number=8966677
So the main issue when it comes to SSNL/MSNL and higher grinders is that we neglect fundamental aspects of our lives (social interaction, priority of values, etc.) for the pursuit of money which we think will make us happy in the longrun. If anyone has played WoW (and you haven't, just bear with me), you'll know that as you go through the level 1-59 grind, you anticipate the lavish joys of being a level 60 and doing all the "fun end-game stuff" (btw this is an analogy only suitable for pre-TBC expansion WoW). But once you get there you realize holy shit, I still have to grind so much more just so I can get to a point where I can be satisfied with my character. The point of this analogy is that we set goals for ourselves, which at one moment we think we'd be satisfied at, but when we finally achieve it, we yearn for more. Poker players are inherently greedy, and so by definition we could never be satisfied. When I grinded out 25nl I just thought "man if I could get to 100nl, I'd be sooo happy with 1k/month". What a jokebook that turned out to be.
So the MSNL player leads an unhappy life. We definitely make enough to sit back and enjoy our lives, but we're also at that critical point of "well I'm making $X now, but I just need to get this much better and then I can finally start playing 1knl and making $Y..". In other words, The MSNL player is frustrated because we're really at that breaking point between someone who can make good money from poker, and someone who can make an extraordinary amount of money from poker. Therefore we keep grinding, we keep devoting time to improving ourselves, and the sad part is many of us end up committing ourselves to permanently staying at 200 and 400nl because the extra stride is just too much (which results in increased unhappiness - to fall short of your goals).
On the other sides of the spectrum are the fish and cts. I believe the fish are happy because they only have one concern, money. Contrast to msnl players who have more concerns: money (because what we make is not "enough" ), and particularly meaningful social interaction (back to "immaterial happiness" ). We feel that we lack in both forms of happiness simply because material happiness isn't good enough for us - whereas the fish have the immaterial happiness, and would simply like some material happiness.
CTS on the other hand has officially won life and, ideally, has both. Of course in reality he probably has his own issues and whatnot, but my perception of someone like cts is that he has enough money to not care about being mediocre, and that allows him to set aside time to really cultivate his immaterial happiness. Just look at his blog and those pictures of Thailand, my god, what a gangster. I think I'm in love.
Well that's it for this topic so far. It's a hugely extensive topic that I could go on forever about, but I think I was able to convey the crucial parts of my thought process (lol) without being overly extravagant. Like I mentioned before, if you're interested in the subject of "true happiness", refer to the thread above where a lot of high stakes ballers chime in.
Cliff Notes: Lots of good self-improvement reading recommended, my life is like 20x better than before, if you want to improve yourself socially, financially, etc. keep reading!
When the TL.net blogs first came out, I was slightly interested, but on the other hand I figured no one cares about random emo ramblings. So it took for BlizzCon to finally break me out of this shell and start a blog. Contrary to what I had thought previously, a lot of peoples' blogs are devoted to contributing to other TL.netters. So here is my contribution. I guess it could be placed in General Forum, but at the same time it's still a bit centered around my amazing self, so thus it belongs in my TL blog.
Here, I want to discuss to a small extent my goals for the future, but more importantly the issue of molding oneself into what they want to become and how to do it. If you're interested in improving your life socially, financially, and/or spiritually (lol), keep reading on .
Quick background information: My first couple years of High School, I was considered the "gamer nerd" - this directly resulted in no girlfriend, no popularity (though your mileage may vary on how important this issue really is), low confidence/self-esteem, etc. Overall I was okay with my life, but that's really like saying Michael Jackson would be okay with just women his own age - I wanted to go that extra step and molest small boys. God that was a horrible analogy.
Years later, I am reasonably happy with my life, I am making a decent amount of money from online poker, prompting many opportunities I plan to take later, and I am obviously a much different person with a newer outlook on my life. My future goals are to never work a day in my life after college (where I'm currently undeclared, but looking to go into something finance related), make tons of money, travel the world, and post a lot on TL.net.
Now that that's over with, here are some things I recommend to help out your own lives. Because I am a poker player, and because there is TONS of information that must be learned in [oker, I have become familiar with the task of reading an absolute buttload as a means of acquiring information. Therefore, my approach is largely based on learning via reading. If you think about it, reading on TL.net is a form of learning via reading, there is a LOT to be learned here, provided you stay out of the SC2 threads LOLOLOL JOKE.
Books I Recommend: These won't be traditional self-help books imo, but more of stuff that would help you exceed far beyond the rest of the masses.
- The 48 Laws of Power by Robert Greene: A VERY good book that has 48 laws one must follow in order to have absolute power/control in their lives that applies to almost every social setting. Greene doesn't follow moral values, so some of these obviously won't apply if you have a heart, but regardless this is a very good read and is read by many famous people which include rap stars, CEOs, etc. What also makes this such a good book is that each law follows with a historical example of when the law was followed and disobeyed, and the results of those famous people that chose either route.
- Rich Dad, Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki: There are a lot of self-finance books out there, and I haven't read many to be honest, but I really like this one. For one, it's not a hard read at all, I finished it in about 2 nights. Kiyosaki argues that the traditional idea of going to school, studying hard, and getting a good job is flawed in the modern age, and that to be truly financially independent, one must understand how money works, and a lot of that is taught in this book. The book is a bit controversial simply because it recommends a few high-risk ventures and discourages safe investing, and a few other points may be debatable, but on the whole this book is fantastic for anyone at college age or older who don't want to be stuck with a crappy job in middle management for the rest of their lives.
- Maximum Achievement - by Brian Tracy: Brian Tracy is a widely-renowned self-help author. I actually haven't completed this book, but it's designed to focus your own self-management abilities and hone yourself into becoming an efficient, positive human being, which has an application in almost every reasonable setting imaginable.
I've seen 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey recommended, but I read it in middle school and wasn't too impressed with it because a lot of it seemed like common sense. It's been a while, and I obviously have a different outlook and understanding of my life since then so I might have to review it one of these days. Feel free to Amazon.com any of these books, they're all pretty much like 10 dollars there.
Articles I Recommend:
HOWTO Be More Productive - by Aaron Swartz http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/productivity A guide to making your life productive, time-management basically. To be honest, time management is one of my worst problems - I spend WAY too much time browsing forums and talking about dumb crap on AIM where I could be doing much better things. It's similar to queueing up only more SCVs at your command centers even though there's a battle going on and your factories aren't blinking.
2005 Stanford Commencement Address - By Steve Jobs http://news-service.stanford.edu/news/2005/june15/jobs-061505.html Steve Jobs' speech, which relates heavily on finding out what you love to do. This is a HUGE thing for most people, especially those who don't want to be stuck with their Walmart jobs for the rest of their lives.
How to Find What You Love To Do - By Brian Kim http://briankim.net/blog/2006/07/how-to-find-what-you-love-to-do/ A follow up to Steve Jobs' article, this is an actual "guide" to finding out what you love to do and some extra stuff to prod you along your way. For what it's worth, my most optimal profession came out to be Asian Pop Star, haha. You guys will be seeing me on Asian TV soon perhaps
Ten Reasons You Should Never Get a Job - By Steve Pavlina http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2006/07/10-reasons-you-should-never-get-a-job/ This and Kiyosaki's book are both what inspired me on my current future goal of not working a day after I graduate. While it does have a little bit to do with me being a lazy computer gamer, it mostly deals with the fact that I'm the type of person that could never work underneath someone, and being completely dependent on that someone for my financial means.
On Seeing The 100% Perfect Girl One Beautiful April Morning - By Haruki Murakami http://www.mat.upm.es/~jcm/murakami-perfect.html This is a very sentimental, yet short and sweet story (lol alliteration ftw) that famous writer Haruki Murakami wrote back in the day. I won't go into it too much, but basically 95% of people who have read this have loved it. If you're not too interested in anything else here, at least read this.
---
I should also mention that I'm not even that huge of a fan of reading. In high school, I refused to read all the assigned reading (for example, The Scarlet Letter is the most ridiculous crap ever written), and I rarely ever completed a real "book" back then. In fact, I think the only book I had read from front to back in all my high school years was probably "Small Stakes Hold'Em" by Ed Miller. However, I've started reading a lot more these days simply because I feel that there are just so many valuable resources out there that I need to expose myself to, such as those I've listed above.
As of right now, I'm not exactly the perfect human being. I have my fair shares of upsets, but I take solace in the fact that I'm only 18 and that I still have a ton of things to learn, a lot to experience, and so much opportunity to grow. If one thing is for sure, however, I am MUCH better off than I was in high school, when I played 8 hours of War3 everyday.
There's a lot of stuff out there for anyone who is interested, and I've only just touched a little bit. For now, here is a very good quote from the 48 Laws of Power that essentially wraps up everything in a nutshell:
"The Promethean task of the powerful is to take control of the process, to stop allowing others that ability to limit and mold them. Remake yourself into a character of power. Working on yourself like clay should be one of your greatest and most pleasurable life tasks. It makes you in essence an artist - an artist creating yourself."
Well, that's it for BlizzCon. This Summer has been pretty eventful for me, but this whole week of hanging out with people I know from an internet gaming forum probably stands out as the best. In this post I will discuss a lot that's going through my mind right now (and obviously show more pictures) and hope to also entertain you guys who have been reading my BlizzCon blog report so far.
Didn't think I'd get it, but I GOT IT BABY. Reach is a cool guy it seems, and after the photo was snapped, he said "Thank you" to me as if I had just helped or given him something. Maybe he felt me mentally caressing his buttocks and liked it?
So before the SC match they had a WoW Q&A session where a bunch of socially incompetent WoW nerds went up to complain about some aspect of WoW and question when appropriate changes will be made. This dude here is the most hilarious looking WoW downy I've ever seen. I hate to be mean, but really, this guy talking with a high-pitched voice and hilariously crossed eyes had us (TL guys) absolutely rolling.
yubee and hot_bid on a date, look how cute they are together . The vintage 2005 wine bottle is totally appropriate.
On August 05 2007 00:54 GTR-2-Go wrote: tell us everything about the progamers, everything
This is actually a pretty hard question because it's not like I was hanging out with the pros all day long (whereas, if you wanted the inside scoop on TL.netters I'd be able to slander like no other ), but here are some things I recall:
- SaviOr practices using Terran - YellOw practices using Protoss - YellOw's Protoss was actually pretty good, but still lost the game vs someone's main race (IriS i think?) - The pros practiced on Longinus, nothing else. - Everyone is shorter than you would think. Yellow's face/head is a bit smaller than I remembered, IriS is still pretty tall however. - Reach has soft hands, I liked touching them. - The CJ coach is still pretty close with Nal_rA and would ob his games and talk to him afterwards. - After losing in the loser bracket vs rA, XellOs and the CJ coach went over to the corner of the practicing area, wherein the coach lectured a dismal-looking XellOs. I really don't want to imply or suggest anything, but all I'm saying is that XellOs had the face of a player who looks like he's ready to give up/retire. - My favorite guys there were Nal_rA, IriS, Reach, and sAviOr in that order. XellOs looked very glum throughout the whole thing, and I didn't really get to see YellOw much (he was behind the scenes for the most part).
Here are just some quick 1 min clips of XellOs playing. I would've taken longer videos but I was still unsure with how the video feature works on my camera (which isn't mine), so I didn't really plan to make a long recording. For some reason, when I uploaded it to youtube it seemed to have gotten darker. I even use a pretty high brightness level on my LCD. But meh, hopefully you guys can enjoy it or something.
I said I wasn't going to make this write up, but I think I have to, considering I am currently among the top 25 best SC2 players in the world (according to yubee, due to TL.net's absolute domination in SC2, we're probably at the top of the top right now ). We played somewhere around 10 games today, 15 games in total, I was partnered with NeoIllusions who has some sick protoss ground macro. I'm not going to write an essay, and I think it'll be easier to follow in bullet points anyway, so here are some thoughts:
- "Death" in SC2 is confusing and detracts from actual gameplay. In SC1, when a marine dies, there is a loud cry and he pretty much explodes and red blood goes everywhere. Even for SCVs, there is a poignant sound to be heard, that if you hear it, you instantly think "dead scv", and there's still a bright explosion. In SC2, units take a tad too long to die, with no distinct death sounds. Some mechanical units diminish into rubble, and for the time being it's not really noticeable that something had really died there. This isn't a HUGE issue, but it does detract from the game in that sometimes you want to know exactly, at a glance, how many of x has died. Additionally, as a spectator sport, it helps the audience understand certain things better when things simply blow up, not take an ice age to slowly deteriorate.
- As far as balance goes, obviously there isn't much because it's still so early. Terran, as I see it, is completely useless as of right now. Right now meaning, with no Zerg in SC2 yet, and with certain Protoss units just being too overpowered.
- The Phoenix is the most imbalanced unit in the game right now. They control somewhat like mutalisks in SC1, but are much deadlier. For harassment purposes, it only takes 4 Phoenixes to kill a probe (off 1 volley of shots). It is relatively cheap, can be made VERY quickly (it's basically a corsair that owns everything on ground), and there aren't many counters to it, ESPECIALLY from the Terran side.
- As far as strategies go, we kept devising new strats and constantly improved on them. As of right now, the most optimal strategy in my opinion for 2v2 is double protoss, with early game builds being flexible, just as long as you eventually mass archons and phoenixes. Archons may be the only viable counter to the Phoenix right now, but Archons are pretty much on the high-tech side, whereas Phoenixes are medium tech and are much easier replaced. Archons might not even be that great of a counter simply because of the Phoenix's mobility as an air unit. The Terran cobra should've been able to counter the Phx, but it's too slow and can't keep up with a smart Phx user. Same with the Viking, even with air-transformation upgrade. I expect the Phoenix to be changed within a week.
- The game engine is roughly more like WarCraft 3's. This isn't too bad, as it wasn't particularly the engine that stunted War3 (it was more the hero and creeping premise instead). The biggest problems, however, might be the overabundance of "noob-friendly" features that are a controversy amongst us SC1 elitists. Such features have been addressed already, including multiple building grouping, auto-worker splitting, rally-to-mineral functionality, combat log (tells you when something is completed in text version), etc.
- On the brighter side, as I've said before, gameplay can be fast-paced, especially if players opt for early game confrontation instead of FE macro whoring. Mostly because marines will still die in 3 hits to a zealot, etc. Also, as you progress in tech, certain units start oscillating in their effectiveness due to the armor/attack types (such as in War3 and SC1), which means the unit you were massing before can be rapestomped in 2 seconds by some unit some kid made by grouping all his high tech production buildings together and pressing one hotkey. What this essentially means is that micro and macro still play a huge factor.
- Like SC1 and War3 before it, SC2 relies a lot on adaptability to your opponent's builds and trying to stay on top of game flow. The biggest things are basically, if you go MM (there are no Firebats btw, which sucks because mm sucks vs charged-zealots), your terran opponent for example, can tech to Vikings (vulture-level tech) and have an advantage because Vikings are light-armor killers. You have to respond accordingly, by having enough Cobras (a combo of a vulture/goliath, only assume the vulture also kicks ass and doesn't do crap concussive damage) to take out the Vikings, etc. I thought this specific aspect was cool, because it spawns all sorts of unit compositions that complement each other, for example viking/cobra, phoenix/zealot, etc.
- I think there are more, but I'm getting a bit tired and have forgotten quite a bit. Regardless, it's been fun, especially noob-stomping with NeoIllusions.
Final Thoughts - The highlight of this event really wasn't SC2, or the Pro Gamers...well just kidding of course it was and nothing can top that. However, the TL.net crew I've met over the week have been really good people. A quick shout out to the people I've hung out with and have talked to starting since Wednesday: CM, Chips/trident, Mani, HB, yubberz, afk-illusions, Etter, omgbnetsux aka tawt in control, Meat, x_woof_x, Hurricane, dknight, semioldguy, mnm, tasteless, and jesus christ the list just goes on. All these people are stand-up guys simply because this is a great forum and community.
- Regarding XellOs, I talked with Autumn (aka translator lady) and I mentioned that some from the community may have acquired the impression that XellOs is annoyed by the fans (probably as a result of his cheerful). In actuality, XellOs appreciates his fans very much, and although he wasn't THAT fond of his cheerful, he still enjoys meeting his fans etc. etc. She even told me that she wasn't lying just to save face for XellOs, and when women tell me they're not lying, then that's good enough for me!
- Blizzard Staff, at least in the SC2 area, had been courteous, helpful, and friendly throughout both days, despite having to deal with a bunch of kids and a ton of smelly WoW geeks. I was really surprised, simply because if I had their job, I would've been a total asshole by Day 2.
- Watching and meeting the Pro Gamers was an awesome experience that I probably won't forget for another, I don't know, 2 months. But seriously, I've been to Korea before, was even in the audience during rA's famous Parallel Lines game against GF where he mass hallucinates his Arbiters to double recall, and that doesn't beat being able to share this geeky hobby of mine with other guys with the same interest, on the cold, hard floor of the Anaheim Convention Center. It probably had something to do with the Fighting cheers, which had officially given me a huge sore throat (we had to yell over thousands of people okay?).
- I'm very glad that Iris, sAviOr, and rA were able to show us such fantastic games (watch savior vs iris game 1, iris vs ra games 1 and 2, and savior vs ra game 1). Nonstop yelling/cheering for these guys that we've only been able to see on SC2 was a very fulfilling experience.
- Pro Gamers in Real Life: I would say Hot_Bid's RL Pro Gamer ranking system does well here, it's very accurate though of course XellOs' 4 rating can be disputed. But the KTF guys know marketing (well it's their livelihood - they're not being paid big bucks to win OSL because they never do - instead they're being paid because they're icons). Oh, and, savior looks kinda chubby on tv, but is actually a skinny, boy-ish looking guy in real life.
If you guys want to hear about anything pertaining to BlizzCon, the pros there, SC2, other TL.netters (such as HB and yubeast's little relationship), feel free to mention it in a reply and I'll be glad to answer. I've accumulated SO many memories at BlizzCon and I'd love to share them with you losers who couldn't come .
BlizzCon Day 1 Pictures and Report Post aka ENVY ME MORTALS!!!!!! Post
As expected, Day 1 was an incredible day. It's so hard for to me to even recollect each and every single awesome moment at BlizzCon (p.s. those that couldn't come because of laziness or whatever, you've seriously missed out on something spectacular. Kill yourself, probably).
I took about 90 pictures here. Most of them were of Pro Gamers, the overall BlizzCon area, random TL.net crap/people, etc. Other people took a lot of pictures too, so you can probably expect even more as people return home and upload everything.
Before bombarding you with the millions of pictures (which I'll try to organize within subgroups), it was a real pleasure meeting class acts like Hot_Bid, yubee, NeoIllusions, MANI-FUCKIN-FESTO7, etc. among many others. Mani is an intelligent, generous, hilarious person in real life, just as he is online. Yubee has the biggest exclusive hard-on for sAviOr and is apparently my partner tomorrow for some 2v2 SC2 tournament action (we have perfected (well not really) a build that is sure to reign superior for at least 6 months after SC2's retail release). Overall everyone's been cool to meet and hang out with etc. etc. except for a certain somebody who had to piss all over my kitchen floor (I had to mention this again).
As far as SC2 observations go, I don't think I'm really qualified to give a detailed analysis. I'm sure Mani, Hot_Bid, and the others will have writeups for this that are much better than I could ever imagine myself writing, so I'll leave that to them. I took a few pictures of SC2 in-game stuff, but really if I have anything to say, it's that SC2 is extremely fun to play, is still pretty fast paced considering it isn't even on fastest speed on the demo computers, looks amazing (though this might cause some slight problems imo to those that liked the simple, traditional feel of SC1), and lives up to at least my expectations thus far.
Quick, awesome points of today - Me and x_woof_x got interviewed by some ugly asian chick who works for yahoo games. I totally lied in my interview but w/e it will just be cool to be on yahoo games. Well not really, but whatever. - While the pro gamers were practicing in the "Pro Gamer Area", I yelled out to REACH "Park Jung Suk!!!" ::Reach turns around to look at me:: "SARANG HAE YO!!!!" (I Love You) ::Reach looks slightly confused, then lets out a shy, curious laugh and smiles at me:: (LR, I am now +1 on you). - XellOs seemed like an asshole, but I am hoping it's just because he's an emotionless pro gaming terran machine and not because he sincerely hates all his fans - semioldguy was generous enough to give me a copy of a XellOs 8.5x11 poster he made that I got XellOs to sign. Personally I'm not that big a fan of signatures but it was still cool to have him sign it. To be honest, getting a signature from all the players was pretty easy but I'm satisfied with just XellOs'. - I HATE(d) sAviOr before, but after meeting him in real life, he's a very nice, cool guy. IriS, however, is the king of chill and is just an overall awesome person as well. Same goes for the CJ coach who was just delighted to see some CJ fans. - Shouting out "3, 2, 1 [Player] FIGHTING!!!!" with TL ranks among the top with the most random, yet purely awesome things I've done in my life. We also yelled out Manifesto Fighting in the 3rd game of IriS vs sAviOr but I don't know if you guys could make it out. - BJs dinner, for the most part, was hilarious. I'll probably leave this for HB to explain though. Happy birthday mnm!
Big screen overhead with new gameplay trailer stuff.
Ditto
Me and Hot_Bid absolutely tearing it up vs x_woof_x and nemY. I sponged like a beast vs a double 2 gate zeal rush while Hot_Bid techs to dt and manhandles everyone.
yubee talking mad shit about how ez it is to pwn nubs in sc2
What happens when you mix in the best internet forum community in online gaming (THIS IS TL.NET IF YOU DIDN'T KNOW BTW) and the reality that is RL? Hard to describe, but it has a little something to do with:
1. LOTS of starcraft 2. LOTS of shit talking 3. and ONE high-post-count TL.net regular pissing the fuck all over my kitchen floor in a sleepwalking, drunken stupor. (He shall remain nameless for the time being)
Besides that, it's BLIZZCON baby. Today was what Hot Bid coins "Day Zero" and as cool as that sounds, it's only the tip of the iceberg. I brought my camera but didn't really go crazy, but here's some pics of random crap/tl.netters (these words are interchangeable) that you might enjoy.
I don't really know what this is, but it's from SC2 and is a Protoss thing. I think.
The hall had a bunch of posters of various blizzard game art going around. This is WoW stuff
It's crazy to imagine that in 5 hours this hall will be completely saturated by fat WoW nerds.
Left to Right: PTC-Hurricane, Mani, CharlieMurphy, Etter
yubee, Hot_Bid
Etter, PTC-Hurricane.
Meat (lying on bed), NeoIllusions, omgbnetsux, Etter (gangsta), dknight (in red), Mani's manly back, Hot_Bid's childish laughter, CM
Mani, Etter, dknight. THX TO SHIELD BATTERY!
Mani, moments before the lens of my camera shatters from the aura of brute strength that perpetually surrounds him.
So clearly this is just a teaser. And clearly, more pictures to come tomorrow, which imo should end up being the most fun day of all.
.
