The Big Sargasso

Death by Straight!

2006-10-12T13:04:00.000-05:00

In the good old days, when I was winning consistently, I was able to collect chips in the first few hands from the tight players and spend the rest of the game pushing them around. Lately, since I’ve asked to be seated with stronger players, my success rate has plummeted. Ultimately, this is a good thing, as it will force me to become a better player. Right now, though, its terrible.

For the last three weeks, I’ve been part of about 6-7 free tournaments at local bars near my home. My starting hands and initial positions at the table have been such that I was unable to set an aggressive tone. Waiting out the bad cards and making bad calls that miss the flop, I’ve watched more aggressive players slowly erode my chip stack. When I was finally dealt a playable hand (say Ace-Queen suited), I’d bet big, only to discover that others would make a bigger hand by the river. After reviewing the notes from the games that I’ve lost recently, they all have one thing in common. My opponents made a straight to either drain me of most of my chips or put me out entirely.

Being the "sucker at the table" and eliminated early, I’ve had plenty of time for reflection. Pushing ego aside, I realized that I’m not that good at recognizing possible straights after the flop. Sure, the brain can discern the flush quickly because of the similar shapes and coloration. The straight is a different story, because the brain has to work harder to fill-in visual gaps with cards that aren’t there. If this weren't enough, I discovered that I am often too focused on the cards I have in my hand than the ones my opponent(s) might hold. I seem to always think my top pair or three-of-a-kind are good enough. Perhaps you remember what the old GI-Joe public service announcements used to say-Knowing is half the battle. If this is the case, with a little bit of training and concentration, I might be able to overcome my mental lapse and recognize possible straights when they are being used against me.

Today’s Take Home lessons:

1) Go beyond playing the cards in your hand. Always consider what your opponents might have.

2) It’s OK to slow down and think, when an opponent puts you to the test. Consider all the combinations and pair them up with your read of your opponent. You might win a few more big pots and stay a live longer as a result. Don’t worry, even the impatient players at the table will give you time to do this, especially if you’ve been making decisions quickly throughout the game.

3) Beware the straight. Learn how to recognize them quickly. Don’t make the mistakes I’ve made.

Some of you might think that these lessons are fundamentals-they are-but every now and then its good to go back and review them. Throughout these posts, I’ve been writing on the pros and cons of new techniques for so long that I’ve forgotten to play the cards correctly. This reflective post is a reminder for me, but I hope it can help you as well.

Cue the "Deep Thoughts by Jack Handey" soundtrack.

-JeD

The Perils of Overbetting the Pot.

2006-09-24T18:06:00.000-05:00

It was well into the third hour of my local freeroll tournament. Looking around my table and the adjacent tables, I was holding steady with about 2000 chips. Thus far, I had played very conservatively. I played two hands total, receiving 10-5 offsuit five times; however, I did win the hands I played. As the five original tables of ten condensed down to two, I thought it was time to cash in on my tight table image. The blinds were 200 and 400 at the time; I would have to think about making a move soon.

A suited Ace-Jack appeared. I was in late position with many of my opponents calling the pot. I bet 1200 (big blind times 3), several people dropped out, one person rereaised, and I immediately re-raised all-in. The table gasped and one person mentioned that there was a whole lot of chips in. My opponent had me covered, but just barely. He laid his hand down and I showed.

The next hand, pocket kings. I raised a little during the pre-flop, and everyone folded. The image was working, but would it work a third time?

On the third hand, my rush continued: pocket queens – no spades. I called. I never call. The opponent on my right stayed in to see the flop, which were three spades. He checked. To induce a call, I went all in. He had a bigger stack than me and spent the greater part of five minutes deliberating. I tuned out everything and went into my unreadable poker zen.

With every passing moment, I knew that it was more and more likely he would fold. Everyone else at the table started to make comments to get me to smile. Since I was deep into my trance at the time, it didn’t work. Finally, he laid his cards down and showed me two red kings.

Three hands, three pots. I now had 6000 chips, enough to last several blinds.

Now, since we were down to five players at our table, the tournament organizer sat three more people down with us. These three people did not see my incredible rush or my recent moves. Nevertheless, when the fourth hand of my rush started, I thought I could have my way with the table no matter what my hole cards were. I showed the table that I was willing to go all-in on just about anything and win. This was hubris, pure and simple.

I was dealt suited Ace-Nine. These are cards pulled from the dreaded gray-zone of poker: high enough to look appealing, but low enough to hurt if I overvalued them. Flashing back to an old WSOP rerun, I remembered that in one tournament, no one lost with Ace-Nine. This dominated my thinking and I temporarily lost my objectivity. I’d pay for it.

Calling the blind, I saw the flop cheaply. Three others, who just sat down, also called. The flop was Js-4c-2h. I had a slim flush draw. Opponent #1 checked, opponent #2 raised to 1200 (double the big blind), and opponent #3 called. Thinking that I could squeeze one more pot out, I reraised all in. All opponents had more chips than me. If I could get two to fold, I stood a chance of going heads-up against the last one. To my amazement, both opponents #1 and #2 folded, while #3 (a beginner), called me.

We showed our cards. She flopped top pair. Neither the turn nor the river helped me at all, and opponent #3 beat me with two jacks. I busted out.

Lessons learned:

1) Watch your bets. It is important to bet high enough to look strong, but low enough to keep your opponents guessing whether or not you are setting a trap. Going all-in or making an over-the-top (6-10 times the big blind) bet looks desperate.

2) The all-in bet loses it’s potency the more you use it. My recommendation is to use it once or twice during the mid-game in big pots, but never use it just to lift your stack a fraction. Had everyone folded during the last hand, I would have added a paltry 1200 to my stack. In retrospect, the all-in was an incredibly bad move here.

3) I am dropping the Ace-nine suited from my list of good hole cards. Maybe I’ll play them again if I was in position and the flop helps me out, but after getting burned, I’m leery.

4) This weekend, I’ll be poping-in “A Bridge Too Far” into my DVD player to drive all of these lessons home.

Oh well. Freerolls are for experimentation. I learned a lot more than I expected during this one.

-JeD

Anything like this happen to you? Please add a comment.

All photos are property of The Big Sargasso and Johnny Evil Dog. All Rights Reserved. 2006.

New Look to the Big Sargasso.

2006-09-10T08:33:00.000-05:00

In my quest to make things more professional around here, I've made the following changes:

Description panel upgrade. Now browsers can get an idea of what this blog is about quickly and easily.
Photographs/artwork. Thanks to the Imageshack picture hosting site, I now have a work-around the picture-posting problem I've been having the last few months.
Icons & Symbols for easy scrolling. Maybe you enjoy the quirky science connections, or maybe you look forward to my poker stories. Since this blog is an ecclectic mix of things, I'll be attaching icons right underneath the titles, so you you can go to your favorite "Big Sargasso" material as quickly as possible.
Ad Consolidation. Both the ads and the links have been grouped so you can go to the section(s) you want without the distraction of advertisements.

I hope you enjoy the new look. As always, your comments are welcome.

-JeD

Gonzo Poker Tip #2: What I Learned by Not Playing the Patient Texas Hold'Em Endgame

2006-09-09T09:26:00.000-05:00

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So you've survived the early rounds of No-Limit Texas Hold’Em by playing aggressively. You've bet big during the pre-flop when you've had premium cards, and gotten lucky a few times when you bluffed with low cards. After draining the fish of their chips, you now sit at the final table with nine other decent players.

What's your plan?

At a recent multi-table tournament (gratis: top 10 finishers receive points), I was in exactly this position. My early and middle-round game was great, and I arrived at the final table as the chip leader. Experts will tell you that unless you are short stacked, you can afford to let a number of hands go by, watching players with fewer chips make desperate attempts to stay in the game. In this way, you can move up in the "money" (or points, in my case) without risking very much. My plan was exactly that: be patient and wait for my shorter-stacked opponents to devour each other before going heads-up with the final three or four.

This worked for awhile, but then, due to a combination of factors, the game bogged down. It seemed that everyone else at the table had the same idea. This, alone, was not a problem, but when combined with the fact that the periodic increases in the blinds were inconsistent, the game dragged on. The blinds lingered on at their rate for far too long (20, 30, and even 40 minutes before the organizer would come by). When they were raised, they would only increase slightly (e.g. Little and Big Blinds were raised from 600-1200 to 700-1400, instead of doubling to encourage action at the table). After more than an hour of this, I was growing tired of breathing in second-hand smoke and wanted to split.

I decided to make something happen.

In the next hand, I raised the two callers in front of me to triple the blind, purposely acting nervous to encourage callers after me. I had a 6-3 off-suit, and wanted to get it over with. No one else after me decided to play the hand. One of the callers reraised me. I reraised all-in back, and he folded. A dangerous thought crossed my mind, which I quickly dismissed, that I could win the tournament by sheer force of will.

Against my better judgement, I tried it anyway when my hole cards came in the next hand: Ac-5s. I thought I could take the pot again without too much effort using table cred alone. Nervously squirming again, I went all-in. This time two people called me. After the long hibernation, people at the table were starting to come to life again, but my cards were less-than-premium. The other two callers had a combination of kings, queens, jacks, and aces. When three face cards appeared on the flop, I knew instantly that my chip stack would be eviscerated. By the end of the hand, I was left with about 10% of my stack. I busted out a short time later.

Yes, the play was reckless, but it was designed to move the game forward. On another night, it may have worked. Nevertheless, I wouldn't recommend this tactic if you happen to be playing for money. Since I attend a free multi-table tournament every week to better my game when I do play for money, it was no big deal to part with my chips that night.

Despite the unhappy ending, I learned two things:

1) Playing the patient endgame is the way to go if you are fortunate enough be the chip leader at the final table. Watching your opponents battle does indeed move you up in the standings with little risk. Thus, this is a good strategy.

2) Play in tournaments with attentive organizers. Make sure they keep to the blind schedule. Make sure that the schedule isn't arbitrary, or the second-hand smoke across the table that you breathe in will shave precious days and weeks of the end of your life that you can't get back.

See you at the final table,

-JeD

P.S. If you have had a similar experience or comments, be sure to shoot me a message. I'd love to hear from you and what you found out.

All photos attached to this article are the property of Johnny Evil Dog and The Big Sargasso. Copyright 2006. All rights reserved.

Gonzo Poker Tip #1: Strong-Raising the First Hand of the Game in No-Limit Texas Hold’em.

2006-08-31T19:31:00.000-05:00

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.In order to survive until the later rounds of a multi-table no-limit Texas Hold’em tournament, a player must be opportunistic and gather as many chips as possible during the early part of the game. In contrast, early-game conventional wisdom dictates that a player should only call or bet with a premium hand, paired or suited aces and other face cards. About a month ago, I wrote an article for Associated Content that recommended picking on the easiest players first (raising their blinds, fast-talking them, etc.)—if you don’t and take their chips, someone else will. Yet, what happens when you sit down at a table of strangers and you don’t know who the “fish” are?

What do you do then?

One opportunistic tactic you might try is strong-raising the first hand of the game. Over the last three months while I’ve played in about 15-20 multi-table tournaments (most of them free buy-ins for points and prizes, because I work for a living), I’ve been experimenting with this new move. I’ve found it to be tremendously successful, because it nearly always puts my opponents back on their heels. The strategy, if done correctly is quite sound. I’ve won 100% of the opening hand pots in which I’ve tried it, regardless of my table position at the time.

For example, last night, I arrived at my local tavern late, was placed at a table. No sooner did the organizer hand me chips did the cards arrive in front of me. My hole cards were Ah-10s, a pretty good hand. I was in middle position at a 12-person table and a few others called before me. I proceeded to raise to three times the big blind. One other person called, while everyone else folded. Already during the pre-flop, I was going heads-up with one other person. The flop came 10h-2c-Ac, and my opponent raised. I re-raised him to three times his bet having made top two pair. He folded, and I raked in a number of stolen chips. Granted, I had a good hand, but I’ve done equally well with 6-2 and 3-8 in other games.

The reason it works so well is threefold:

1) Most players are reluctant to bet or bet big early on in the tournament. After all, they just sat down. No one wants to make an early exit.

2) Raising in early and middle position takes the intestinal fortitude that many players do not have, unless they’ve been dealt premium hole cards, or the game is well into its second hour.

3) If you are walking into a situation where no one knows you, you have the advantage of surprise. You might as well gather chips opportunistically while you can.

Strong-raising the first hand is not infallible. It is designed to throw the table off-balance much the same way you might ask a pushy car-salesperson, “Why won’t you let me buy this car,” after hours of haggling. To counter this move is, of course, the strong re-raise. If you’re good at reading people, and can see this move coming (naturally, two good hole cards help), re-raising the raiser may allow you to grab the pot as well.

New players to no-limit Texas Hold’em often play the cards in front of them. Tournament winners combine the cards their dealt with the psychology of reading their opponents and most of all, guts. If you can calmly bluff with a straight face, add strong-raising the first hand to your Hold’em repertoire. The potential of doubling-up on the first hand not only feels good, but it gives you a kind of “table cred” your opponents won’t soon forget.

-JeD

P.S. If you decide to try strong-raising the first hand in your local tournament, please let me know how it turned out by replying to this post. (Copyright 2006)

All photos for this post are property of Johnny Evil Dog and the Big Sargasso. (Copyright 2006)

New Planets and the School Science Fair - Tips for Students and Parents

2006-08-16T22:17:00.000-05:00

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You may have heard that the International Astronomical Union (IAU) is strongly considering a new planetary line-up for our solar system. As I read the stories from the various news services today, a memory from my childhood surfaced - maybe some of you also experienced something similar. When I was in the fourth grade, the school science fair was coming up. Like many of you, I waited until the last minute, went down to the local sewing store, bought nine styrofoam balls of various sizes, put them in a nice carboard display box and labeled them Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, etc. Sound familiar?

So I took my "insta-project" to school the next day, and to my surprise, five other kids had done the exact same thing. Sure, there was the kid who strung two magnets together so they just about touched, giving the appearance that they floated in the air. Of course, there we a couple of baking soda volcanoes, and a guy who borrowed an electro-cardiogram from his heart surgeon father. Yet, the best project that year was something worthy of a masters thesis...I'm not kidding. The quietest kid in the class produced a wonderful science fair project on surface tension. He walked away with first prize. It was clear that he spent months working on the posters and the experiments with water and bubbles. It was truly great with physics equations and everything!

I think my project got an honorable mention, just like all the other would-be planet-builders.

As the IAU deliberates, many of this year's fourth-graders wait with baited breath to hear what news comes out of the convention. Will we keep the nine-planet configuration we have had for so many years, or will there be three new ones to consider? I'm sure what transpires at this convention will translate into multiple science fair projects this spring. Don't be surprised if every other student has a Planet Ceres and a Planet Xena in front of them.

Now, I don't know if many grade-schoolers read "The Big Sargasso" (judging by my counter at the bottom of this site), but if there are, I strongly suggest you pick something different than a planet display this year. The teachers expect it. Several kiddies, hoping to get a jump on things, probably went to the sewing store today to hi-grade anything that can remotely stand-in for Xena, Ceres, and Pluto-Charon.

When the fights start in the aisles of Hobby Lobby and Joanne's Fabrics, what will you do? I've got some solutions for you. Here are some science fair questions to ponder that will keep you out of trouble as well as give you a good chance at winning the science fair this year:

1) How do plants know when its time to start growing?
2) How does plate tectonics work?
3) Why is it easier to move things with levers and pullies rather than your bare hands?
4) If icebergs form in the salty ocean, why are they not salty?

While astronomy is and always shall be fascinating to the grade school set, especially this year, you will need something to set you above the fray. See what you can come up with trying to develop a project from these questions on your own. I'll revisit this in a few months with some project ideas on how you can actually test these questions using items you can find around the house.

TTFN - JeD

Time For Alternative Energy Yet?

2006-08-08T20:56:00.000-05:00

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If gas prices weren't high enough, BP Exploration Alaska, Inc. announced that it will be shutting down a major Alaskan pipeline, removing a further 400,000 barrels/day from the U.S. inventory. The story, running in the Seattle Post Intelligencer and nearly everywhere else is a further reminder of not only our dependence on foreign oil, but also on oil in general. With unstable conditions in Nigeria, the Middle East, and Venezuelan animosity, prices continue to go up.

It has been high time for quite some time to develop an national alternative energy program that incorporates solar, wind, nuclear, and biomass into our fossil fuel energy strategy. Other nations with large economies like Brazil and the United Kingdom (see UKWED site) are moving in that direction. Why can't we?

Graph reproduced without permission from the Associated Press and the Seattle Post Intelligencer 8/8/2006.

Graph data from the U.S. Department of Energy

Hybrid Cars Fast-Approaching Cost-Effective Status, but May Feel Cheaper to Operate Now.

2006-08-02T09:47:00.000-05:00

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Gas prices got you nervous? Thinking about getting a hybrid-electric automobile?

A year-old report from Edmunds.com, notes that gas would have to breach the $5.60 per gallon mark for hybrid-electric cars to become cost-effective over regular cars over the course of a car's hypothetical five-year ownership life. What keeps them from being cost-effective now? Hybrid car price-tags are often $3000-4000 more than the price of similar non-hybrid automobiles. As the reasoning goes, a regular car owner would have to pay over this amount in gasoline costs to make the cost of owning a hybrid car economically rational. As long as gas prices stay below $5.60 per gallon, it's actually cheaper to own a regular automobile.

But it might actually feel cheaper to own a hybrid.

As a hybrid owner (I own a Honda Civic - the waiting list for a Toyota Prius remains 3-6 months - too long for me!), I fill up less often and see the gas mileage I'm getting in real-time (43-51 mpg depending on conditions). Psychologically, I feel better driving it. I can drive between 500-550 miles before I need to fill up, which is almost double regular cars my size, and triple many SUVs based on mpg (often SUVs have larger tanks). As we are all tied to our moods and anxieties, gasoline is one less thing in my life I need to worry about. Sure I have a higher monthly payment until the car is paid off, but it doesn't feel like it matters much because paying the bill happens once a month.

Regardless of how it feels psychologically, owning a hybrid car will likely be a rational economic choice sooner than most of us think. If the pricing trends of the last two years continue (see the Energy Information Administration site here), we should hit $5.60 per gallon by the fall of 2008.

To drive the point home, gas prices in my area hover around $3.25 per gallon, and it's mid-2006 now. At this time last year, gas prices were $2.28 per gallon.

Thinking about buying a hybrid-electric car? For a good discussion of choices and issues, please visit the HybridCarBlog here.

Photo reproduced without permission from About.com. Please go here to vistit the site.

Climate Change Unbelievers Losing Steam

2006-08-02T08:54:00.000-05:00

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With this summer's heat wave in full swing across the United States, many people in my area are starting to acknowledge that it is getting both warmer, and warmer more often. Coupled with last year's (2005) severe drought, this heat wave is bringing high AC bills, water bans, and general malaise to many parts of the nation.

Scientists note that more frequent and severe heat waves are but one symptom of global warming. Other symptoms include too much rain in areas that shouldn't receive much rain, too little rain in areas where rain is expected, more severe hurricanes, droughts, sea level rise, melting glacier and polar ice, and changes in plant and animal distribution. While many people where I live emphatically label the heat wave as proof of dramatic climate change, they are just as likely to change their tune during the winter months when the thermometer dips below zero for a week.

Nevertheless, patterns are emerging: low lying islands are starting to flood so much that in some areas of Micronesia in the Pacific Ocean, residents have had to move. If you look around the major news organization sites, you'll likely find other areas that are now permanently flooded.

It's getting to be time to do something about it. In November, most people will vote their pocketbook and support the candidate that pledges to give them the best break on gas prices. If we forget the environmental argument for a second, people should also realize that air conditioning and heating generally cost more than transportation. Food costs from drought also cost money. Remember the tomato shortage of 2004-2005 and the periodic spikes in orange juice?

While global warming should be the news of the day, you won't hear Bill O'Reilly, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, or any of the other uber-right pundits taking about it. They believe that the global warming idea was invented by "liberal" scientists who are destroying the country by preaching moral relativism and gay rights to our youth and "environmental whackos" who want everyone to live in communes. O'Reilly and company spend their days and nights this summer talking about the war between Israel and Hezbollah - nothing on global warming or climate change - at least nothing that acknowledges its existence or the human contribution to it.

Limbaugh goes so far as asking his radio audience to relax so he can do their thinking for them. Generally speaking, letting anyone, let alone someone with a drug problem and continued run-ins with the law, make decisions for you is a BAD idea. You should, of course, think for yourself.

While I doubt many conservative radio listeners read The Big Sargasso, if you do, and believe (because Bill, Rush, or Sean told you) that global warming is a myth created by the liberal media to steal your tax dollars, I challenge you to go outside and think how climate has changed over your lifetime in your area. If you live in a place like Kansas or Nebraska, you've probably noticed very little change due to your location on the map, so do your own research on other places around the world and note how climate has changed for them. If you're still fairly young, ask your parents and grandparents what the weather was like way back when.

You might be surprised.

Nevertheless, I'll be voting for candidates that have the best plan to combat global warming/climate change, because ultimately it will be the best environmental AND economic choice for my family and I.

I challenge you to get the facts and do the same.

The Tipping Point Craze Begins

2006-07-11T12:31:00.000-05:00

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Gavin Schmidt, climate modeler at NASA's Goddard Institute of Space Studies, recently wrote a piece on climate tipping points (click here for article), a term he says now in vogue due to the popularity of the movie "An Inconvienient Truth" (click here for companion website). The phrase is typically used to describe a point of decision, or the cusp (as Robert Heinlein might say - See "Stranger in a Strange Land"), or a point-of-no-return.

It is spreading throughout many scientific and business circles much the same way English phraseology adopted Saddam Hussein's infamous prediction of a "Mother of All Battles" during the First Gulf War. If you remember, soon after this phrase was coined, everyone from car dealerships to beekeepers started using the "Mother of all _____" to describe their situations. I was living in Green Bay, Wisconsin at the time and I remember one of the Ford dealerships announcing the "Mother of all Discounts!" and a buddy of mine describing his beat up caddy as the "Mother of All Chick-Magnets".

But I digress.

A tipping point refers is known as a critical threshold beyond which the behavior of a "system" changes dramatically. One of the best ways to describe this is the example of the tipping chair. While watching TV or doing some other activity, people sometimes lean back in their chairs, taking two of the four chair legs off the floor. Well, as everyone knows, there is a point-of-no-return where if the sitter continues to lean back, the chair will fall backwards hitting the floor and spilling the occupant. Before this threshold is reached, the chair will return to it's initial four-legged state.

Climate scientists often apply this term to the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Below a certain amount, the earth's global temperature varies between relatively predictable levels. Since CO2 is a greenhouse gas, with an extraordinary ability to amplify the world's greenhouse effect, the more we add to the atmosphere through the burning fossil fuels and other activities, the thicker the greenhouse blanket becomes. Virtually all climate, earth, and environmental scientists agree that we are fast approaching a critical threshold with CO2, beyond which many of the reliable climate systems we depend on will change dramatically. Here's where the doom-and-gloom scenarios of sea level rise, ocean current disruptions, sudden shifts in agriculture, etc. would play themselves out.

Schmidt notes the huge upsurge in articles using the tipping point phrase. Most stand in support of the information presented by Al Gore in "An Inconvenient Truth" or use the phrase to review the movie itself, while a small minority exemplified by Michael McNeil's recent piece in the Sioux City Journal (click here for article) pan the movie and its conservation message as a type of left-wing propaganda. Incidently, this guy announces proudly that he didn't even see the movie.

Nevertheless, there are still others using the tipping point phrase to describe non-environmental things. Like Saddam Hussein's "mother of" phrase, politicians, economists, pundits, and even advertisers are adopting it. Some wonder if President Bush is at a tipping point in his presidency because of his string of bad luck, while others refer to the threshold U.S. car company profits may be close to due to their over-reliance on making big SUVs rather than smaller hybrid cars, or whether soccer will break out and become a sport Americans take seriously.

So have we passed the point-of-no return with the phrase - a tipping point in the use of the phrase "tipping point"? Leaving the obvious "Seinfeld" coffee-table nod aside, based on what I've seen, I would say so.

Zero-Sum Games – Fantasy Football & Ecosystems

2006-06-20T11:53:00.000-05:00

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This year, I expect big things from my fantasy football team, Frank’s Tiki Lounge. For three of the last four years, the Tikis have done pretty well. Due to a couple of deft player pick-ups and a whole lot of luck, they’ve consistently placed 2nd or 3rd. In addition to being a fantasy geek, I also think about environmental matters and ecological structure – which I guess makes me a science geek as well.

I was thinking about my fantasy football luck recently, specifically about the math. As the old saying goes: “someone’s gotta win and someone’s gotta lose.” If you expand this to include a whole league for a whole season, there's a fixed number of individual contests and outcomes that can occur. The number of wins that happen equal the number of losses in the league over a year, unless there's a tie. What this amounts to is a situation called a zero-sum game. Wins equal losses; positives equal negatives.

In ecology, the structure and the composition of ecosystems depends on the complex combination of abiotic (non-living related factors: temperature, humidity, chemicals, length of winter, etc.) and biotic (living factors: predation, competition, disease, etc.) factors . So, if you want to know how many deer a given ecosystem (say a forest) can support, you have to take all of these different factors into account. There’s only a limited amount of sunlight, nutrients, water, etc. to go around. Since many of these factors also interact with one another, its a real challenge to figure out what's happening.

Fantasy football is a bit easier to get your head around. Knowing the season-length, your players, and your opponent’s players are all you have to really consider.

Nevertheless, both follow similar rules, and both are zero-sum games. There’s only so much of an essential commodity to go around. Fantasy teams compete for wins and, occasionally, players on the trading block. Different species in an ecosystem (wolves, deer, ants, flies, oaks, poison ivy, bacteria, etc.) compete for various food, habitat, and access to certain nutrients depending on their situation. Raccoons and possum may compete with each other for bird eggs, while flies and beetles compete for decaying matter, and one type of plant may compete with another for access to sunlight, water, soil, space, etc. On the fantasy football side, the Screamin’ Cheese, Jimmy the Greek Experience, the Tikis, and the other teams compete with one another to improve their overall divisional records. While ecosystems are a bit more complex, the rules are actually pretty similar.

A major difference that separates the two concerns how reliable the conditions are. Fantasy footballers function in a relatively stable context - a reliably structured season followed by a playoff and championship. Unless the league's rules change during the offseason, all teams can depend on a 12-game season followed by playoffs. On the other hand, ecosystem conditions can change from year-to-year, sometimes dramatically. This variability in the "rules" makes things even more challenging to track. Imagine trying to understand what makes a fantasy league tick when there's an 8-game football season in Year 1, a 12-game season in Year 2, and an 11-game season in Year 3. How many games will Year 4 have? What will it take to win the league in Year 4, if you only had this information?

To discern ecosystem stability, you'll have to look at several years, perhaps decades, of data to get a sense of what's normal and what's not in terms of biotic and abiotic factors. Some years may have slightly more sunny days than others. Some years may have more rainfall. During an especially rainy year more nutrients (Phosphorus, Nitrogen, Calcium, etc) might wash into the system. Depending on what these nutrients are, some species might benefit, giving them a temporary advantage over others they compete with.

To get into this a little more, if phosphorus (a chemical very important to plant growth) inputs are higher than average in a given year, perhaps plant species #1 can take advantage of the situation and grow taller than others, because it is a bit better at turning it into growth than its neighbors. During the next year, even if phosphorus levels should drop, plant species #1 might have turned the previous year's jackpot of nutrients into a height advantage over its competitors. If plant species #1 can shade out others, it might begin to dominate the ecosystem not just for the remainder of the year, but also many years to come.

In comparison, because all fantasy football teams start from scratch with players each year, dynasties are few and far between - depending more on luck and owner decision-making than advantages in resources. Though, I suppose some owners might have better access to player stats than other owners...yet, this is probably negligible most of the time.

So, both are zero-sum games, sharing many dynamics in common with the other. Just keep in mind that to understand the ecosystem game, you need to do a lot more bookkeeping. Nevertheless, wrapping your mind around the zero-sum nature of one will help you understand the other, as well as other zero-sum games occuring in such diverse fields as business, economics, and politics.

Before signing off, I really should mention that the stakes in a forest ecosystem are life, death, and in some cases, localized extinction (a.k.a. extirpation). The stakes in fantasy football are thankfully much lower – just an entry fee and pride.

Go Teeks!

Navigating Wedding Receptions – Lessons from the Herd

2006-06-18T12:21:00.000-05:00

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Here’s the situation. You’re at a wedding where you know very few people. The bar is packed, and the person you’re with is catching up with old friends. Thus, with this little bit of time on your hands you can either rearrange the fine glassware at your setting or review the wedding program, again. What do you do? If these options bore you, I’ve got something else you can try.

You know that later on in the evening, you’ll probably spend too much of your time trying to navigate through clusters of guests on the way to one location or another, only to be frustrated by Great Aunt Noreen with her walker or Big Uncle Ralphie’s disco moves. Is there any way to predict these things to improve your overall wedding-reception-navigation experience? I think I’ve got a solution. Watch how people organize themselves.

Now it’s later in the evening, dinner plates have been cleared away and the dancing begins – unfortunately, this is where the trouble starts. You now have to deal with three groups which will undoubtedly block your path at some point in the evening. The first group: the elderly, generally stay out of the way by remaining at their tables. The only time they slow things down is when they decide to leave their table at a critical time, like preventing your escape from a conga line. The second group tends to be middle-aged folks, college friends, distant relatives who haven’t seen each other in awhile, or work acquaintances, all of whom form little talking circles either near the bar or in between tables. These groups continually form and break-up throughout the evening, blocking high traffic areas for the wait staff and changing the paths of movement for everyone else. During the height of the reception, combined with the tables themselves, they will always create what I like to call, the maze.

Group three, the dancers, further reinforces the maze. Sometimes to get around the maze, poor souls attempt to cross the dance floor to escape. This is dangerous – especially during the “Electric Slide”, “Hokey Pokey”, or “Shout” (see picture above) – because they can expand and contract without warning.

So, how do you deal with such a daunting situation? I know what you're thinking - use lessons from the Animal Kingdom! Perhaps knowing a little bit about how groups organize themselves into efficient structures could help?

Know that talking or dancing circles at weddings organize themselves much the same way that grazing elk herds do. Males typically stand or cheat toward the outside of the circle, while females and children tend to stand near the middle. Male elk can better engage predators by teaming up to make a kind of protective outer ring. As a result, danger is only on one side. This is pretty similar to “circling the wagons” when wagon trains would come under attack in the Old West.

Though these circles form in the first place to make conversation easier, I think that at some level, they probably form with “attached or related” males (husbands, boyfriends, brothers, fathers, etc.) on the outside to prevent competition from other “lone wolf” males. The critically acclaimed movie, “Wedding Crashers” did much to raise awareness of predatory lotharios in our midst. Subconsciously, maybe this is what attached males are thinking about.

Okay. So now you have a better understanding of what you’re up against. The maze is simply a series of circles that form and break-up unpredictably - No problemo!

To deal with the maze, you have a number of options. You could choose to wait it out, potentially trapping yourself at a table or in a boring conversation within a talking circle. You might also elect to face the horrors of crossing the dance floor. Yes it's a potential shortcut, but if a polka is being played, it could be worse than walking through a carwash blindfolded.

If you've got the Zen and the intuition, probably the best way is to move “like water through grains of sand” plotting a course through the no-man’s land of talking circles and tables. If you try this last one, you should watch people's feet - a good indication of their intended direction and whether they'll back into you. How you deal with this problem is up to you. Try out these tips and tell me what you think. Good Luck!

Why Sargasso?

2006-06-16T11:13:00.000-05:00

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This place has always been fascinating to me. Seaweed, debris, and algae from all over the Atlantic get funneled in and concentrate. There have been several stories of ships from the Age of Exploration, the slave trade, and yachts from the present day stuck in the Sargasso Sea, never to come out.

I'm surprised the Sci-Fi Channel hasn't set one of their shows here yet, though I think the old Johnny Quest cartoon did one back in the 1970's. I remember something about villanous scuba divers dressed up to look like lizardmen - to scare away interlopers and those meddling kids. Don't worry, as always, Johnny, Hadji, and Bandit saved the day.

Why Sargasso?
It's the perfect thought black hole.

Map from http://shs.westport.k12.ct.us/chia/caribbean/sargasso_sea.htm