Ronald's Blog
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Mafia II
Jul 23rd
Born the son of a poor immigrant, Vito is a beaten down Italian American who is trying to secure his piece of the American Dream. Looking to escape the life of poverty that consumed his childhood, Vito is soon swayed by the lure of power and wealth that a life of Organized Crime can bring.
A petty criminal his whole life, Vito, along with his childhood friend, Joe, will descend into the world of Organized Crime. Together, they will work to prove themselves to the Mob as they try to make their names on the streets of a cold and unforgiving city.
Mafia 2 immerses players in the mob underworld of a fictitious late 1940′s and early 1950′s scenario. The game engages you in a cinematic Hollywood movie experience in a living, breathing city, fusing high octane gunplay with white knuckle driving and an engaging narrative.
“We’re a little more than a month away from the release of Mafia II, the crime drama that lets players rise through the ranks of the mob. In a nutshell, it can be described as Grand Theft Auto set in the ’40s and ’50s. We’ve played through several hours of the game now and are generally enjoying ourselves. Here are three things we’re really digging about Mafia II – and three things we’re not so crazy about…” Read the full preview at IGN here!
Mafia 2 has official release date the 24th of August, 2010. Pre-orders are now available at several stores, including Steam. Rumors claim that a downloadable demo is right around the corner. Check out the official web page for more information.
Hand of The Day
Jul 22nd
I felt like gambling a little tonight and therefore removed the 4 month old dust from my Pokerstars account. The reason why I took a break was because I ran into quite a few sessions where my patience failed me, and by playing again today I noticed that the break had helped me a lot. Even though most of my 2 hour session was fairly slow and didn’t present much action, I did run into this one before closing down for the evening!
Summer Coming to An End
Jul 22nd
It’s been a while since my last contribution to this blog, been a few very busy months. Work was mad the last couple of months before my summer vacation, long days and little time to spend in front of my computer. Now, however, I’ve been enjoying a couple weeks off and as we speak I’m still on vacation for another week before I start working again. Even though the weather in Norway has been crap, like usual, I’ve had a great time. First off I spent a few days at Sandsøy, then the journey went straight to England, London.
I’ve never been to London before. In fact, I’m not sure I’ve been to such a big city before in my whole life. The first few hours walking the streets, looking around, the size of it was just overwhelming. Cars, busses, taxies and people… EVERYWHERE! We were booked for 3 nights on a lovely 4 star hotel, and even though I had doubts to how get time to go by, I was definitely up for a surprise. Filled with excitement, good memories and the beautiful sights close in mind, we were one night from moving to Milton Keynes. London had definitely answered our expectations by far. Could this trip become any better?!
Schumacher Targets Another Title
Jul 22nd
Michael Schumacher have not been much of a contestant for the championship this year, but even so the seven time World Champion is determined to pick up an eight title in 2011, before his current contract with Mercedes comes to an end after the 2012 season.
Purely mathematically, Schumacher is not out of the running this season, however, being 109 points behind the current leader Lewis Hamilton, it’s very unlikely to happen this season.
Breaking Bad
Apr 6th
Bryan Cranston leads the cast as Walter White Sr, yes, Bryan Cranston, Hal from Malcom in the Middle. This show in the first episode alone outdoes his great success in any or all of the Malcom in the Middle episodes. With this show he certainly has brought a lot of respect for the man, people loved his character in Malcom in the Middle but once the show was over there was nowhere he could really go, he wasn’t too big, and he hadn’t shown any real talent and versatility. This show has done everything he needed to show the world he is a very good actor and now I don’t doubt that he will become big after this, he deserves it, he really is amazing.
Not only is Cranston an amazing actor but so is the rest of the cast! They’re all relatively fresh faces, which is always a good thing when they’re all doing wonderful performances. Aaron Paul plays his part very well and doesn’t become just another annoying “wigger”, which makes the show so much more enjoyable instead of having to drag myself through the scenes with him in it.
I was surprised to find out that RJ Mitte (Walter White Jr) actually does have cerebral palsy himself as well as play a character who has it, he does a truly fantastic job, especially in one episode in particular, those who have seen the show I’m sure know what I’m talking about, for those who haven’t you can look forward to it.
Hand of The Day
Apr 1st
As poker is what keeps me busy these days I’d figure to share some of the action I come by every now and then. Today’s session started very slow, I was actually a bit anxious I’d run tired but decided to show good discipline and take a break every now and then. After 3,5 hour of play I was up quite a bit already, which was good considered the trouble I’ve had last few days, but little did I know that I was going to stumble into the biggest pot I’ve yet seen in 0.02/0.05 at Pokerstars.com.
How Do You Handle Bad Beats?
Mar 31st
The topic addresses a issue that I yet have to find an answer to. As I’ve only until recently played casually I’ve over the last five days started playing 8 hours a day. I am stuck on sick duty as I’ve just done surgery on a back injury, and to make time pass by I thought it was time to kick up my poker game a notch. Don’t get me wrong, I am not an expert, more a player who has just started out even though I got some years of experience already.
I am playing $0.02/0.05, and I would say that I am beating the limit, even though I’m just breaking above even. The reason why I have been doing what seem to be rather poorly, and this is after studying my 46 hours of play during the last 4 days, is that I tend to get into situations where I put my whole stack on the line and my opponent either hits his two outer on the river, or worse, two running cards. I know variance and bad beats should be more than common for most players, the ones playing quite a bit anyway, but how do you actually handle these kinds of beats?
PokerTracker & HUD
Mar 30th
If you’re going to play poker online, seriously anyway, you need to have some kind of tracking program examining your play. After trying a few of the ones available, PokerTracker was the one I found best. When that’s said: They all do roughly the same.
PokerTracker records your play, allowing you to pin point specific leaks in your game. You can view everything from how often you raise pre flop, to how many times you’ve cold called a raise from middle position. It will tell you exact how much you’ve won or lost, even giving you totals from each position. PokerTracker allows you to keep track of your bankroll, rake, and will let you know whether you are a winning player or not, and which parts of your game need more work.
Texas Hold’em Introduction
Mar 30th
In Texas hold ‘em, like all variants of poker, individuals compete for an amount of money or chips contributed by the players themselves (called the pot). Because the cards are dealt randomly and outside the control of the players, each player attempts to control the amount of money in the pot based on the hand the player holds.
The game is divided into a series of hands or deals; at the conclusion of each hand, the pot is typically awarded to one player. A hand may end at the showdown, in which case the remaining players compare their hands and the highest hand is awarded the pot; that highest hand is usually held by only one player, but can be held by more in the case of a tie.
The objective of winning players is not winning every individual hand, but rather making mathematically correct decisions regarding when and how much to bet, raise, call or fold. By making such decisions, winning poker players maximize long-term winnings by maximizing their expected gain on each round of betting.
Surgery & Easter -Holidays
Mar 30th
Last Thursday, after a long wait, I did surgery on my back. I’ve had a struggle with my back since March 09, and even though I wanted to get it sorted I can’t say I was much excited about the day the surgery was going to happen. Don’t know what it is but I have a silly fear of operating my back, maybe it isn’t obvious to everyone else, but if something goes wrong down the line of surgery I’d risk all kind of problems in the future. Losing a finger or even a hand, that’s one thing, not that any of those options are good, but ending up in a wheel chair does not excite me.
