| Get-out clauses |
[16 Jul 2009|08:16am] |
One of the first rules as a spin doctor, when your organization has been made to look a complete tit, is to find someone else to blame, even if this means serious truth distortion.
So, step forward with the prize of the day, the spokesmen for Gloucestershire Police constabulary.
Police went to raid a house in Gloucester yesterday. On being informed that one of the residents was being tested for swine flu, they completed the search in boiler suits (blue), face masks and wearing protective gloves. Yep, our boys in blue are there to protect us.
Well, clearly, this made them a laughing stock. When neighbours enquired what kind of mysterious chemical weaponry was being stored at number 22 -- anthrax? terrorist bomb-making equipment? nitro-glycerine? — and on being told that it was a case of suspected swine flu, one wag said "seems a bit over-precautious just to be delivering tamiflu".
So, how do you get out of the situation where your police force look like a bunch of namy-pambies? Blame someone else!
A Gloucs police spokesman said that "We are following NHS advice..."
Oh really? That sounds good. But what advice might that be? Almost certainly not "if there is a suspected case of swine flu, dress in blue boiler suits, plastic gloves and face masks".
As far as I can see, the only advice even remotely relating to this (and it doesn't really apply) is "The Health Protection Agency (HPA) recommends that healthcare workers should wear a facemask if they come into close contact with a person with symptoms (within one metre) to reduce their risk of catching the virus from patients". The HPA also recommends that "The wearing of face masks by healthy people, who are not involved in caring for people who are ill, is not recommended."
So, er, in other words, the spokesman seems to have got the NHS confused with the HPA, and to have misinterpreted what the HPA actually said.
All of this is by-the-by of course. What we are really talking about is ultra-cautious risk assessment under the old principle of "no-one ever got sacked for buying IBM".
You might have thought that the police would have been a bit less keen to look like ultra-cautious twats after this report http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article6652450.ece on July 7.
A man called for an ambulance. he was advised to leave his door open in case his condition worsened. He did so. The paramedic arrived six minutes later, saw the open door, and, fearing that the place was being burgled, carried out a 16-minute "risk-assessment" and then called for the police to arrive for support.
This was the London Ambulance Service's non-apologetic explanation for letting a man die because someone was scared to go through an open door, despite the face that he was answering an emergency call:A spokesman for London Ambulance Service said that two “single responders” had been sent to the address in cars, an ambulance crew and a duty officer. “The first member of our staff to arrive carried out a full on-scene risk assessment and requested police assistance due to safety concerns,” the spokesman said.
Clearly, when speaking to these people, we are from Venus and they are from Mars. Indeed, later on in the article, the Ambulance Service spells it out in black and white:We have a duty of care to treat patients but we also have to look after our staff,” he said. “In this case the medic conducted the assessment, had safety concerns and decided to call for back-up.”
The "single responders" system was introduced, whether this is officially accepted or not, as a result of the government's beloved "targets" system. Ben Bradshaw, then a junior health minister, denied in December 2007 that “single responders” would put patients at risk. He said they could help to free resources and that emergency calls would be responded to more quickly.
Well, now we know differently, don't we?
And, irony of ironies, the man who died as a result of the Ambulance Service being more concerned about a paramedic encountering a burglar than saving a life was himself a chauffeur for the Metropolitan Police. I wonder if he had been allocated a blue boiler suit and facemask.
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| BRICS |
[15 Jul 2009|12:44pm] |
Brazil, nice for holidays, Russia, Dangerous, India, inefficient, China, callous.
Well, there's yer BRICS in a stereotypical sentence.
I've long been a greater fan of China than of India in terms of investment potential. That doesn't mean that I'd put money into China-listed equities. If the rule is that the shareholder in the UK will get stiffed by malodorous executives stuffing their pockets before any dividends get paid, then the rule in China, where the most significant owner is the Chinese state, the problem is squared. For years, for example, the banks in China made dubious "loans" to various dignitaries based on their position in the Communist Party rather than any likelihood of them being repaid. But then (and all credit to the Chinese for their business acumen) they convinced foreign players keen to get a foothold in China to take on these banks and their non-performing loans, and to pay the Chinese state for the privilege.
Any country that can manage that kind of con trick is worth backing, providing you aren't one of the conees.
Contrariwise, I have long held a bias against India, mainly on the grounds that its political system is such that, by the time anything gets done, it is usually too late.
But now it appears that the old shareholder-stiffing was in full flow here in the 1990s as well. More than 100 companies listed on the various Indian stock exchanges in the 1990s, taking advantage of enthusiasm for a rapidly expanding economy., have since "vanished". India has a Ministry of Corporate Affairs. It is investigating the 121 companies that failed to fulfil filing requirements. The Securites & Exchange Board has barred more than 100 companies and 378 directors. But if you were an investor in these companies, write off your money. It's gone.
As Minister of Corporate Affairs Salman Kundu conceded; "there is not force to prosecute. The prosecution is hardly visible and doesn't bring confidence to investors".
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Not that such shenanigans are unique to the developing world or the BRICS. A quick look at Hollywood, home of the most venal accountacny sharks, quickly confirms otherwise.
New York-based New Line Cnema is being sued by the heirs of JRR Tolkien, who sold the rights to the books 40 years ago for $250,000 and a share of the receipts on any films made.
One rule when signing these deals is, always go for the gross. That's because, as anyone in the US film industry knows, if you accept a share of the net profits, the net profits will be zero.
But the Tolkien deal was based on gross - Under the contract, New Line was to pay a percentage of all gross receipts, after deducting 2.6 times the production costs, plus advertising expenses in excess of a certain amount. The heirs claim that they have yet to see a cent of the $6bn made by New Line over the three films.
New Line (owed by Time Warner) is no stranger to legal action. Peter Jackson sued New Line in 2005, claiming a "miscalculation" of his proceeds from the first film. They settled for an undisclosed sum in 2007.
One alleged trick is that New Line is claiming that Warner Bros not New Line, received revenue for distributing the films abroad. New Line’s accounting also included 20% of home- entertainment revenue, instead of the 100% called for in the contract, the heirs say.
It's not as if I am planning on writing anything that Hollywood might get hold of, but it's a good idea to be aware that, if I ever did, my chances of ever seeing all of the money that might become due to me would be between zero and zero.
You wouldn't think that it would be possible to dislike anyone more than Entertainment lawyers, until you come across Hollywood accountants.
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| Grinding |
[14 Jul 2009|06:59pm] |
We are entering what might be called the Birks grind season. This runs from the beginning of the summer school holidays to its end. At this point I do not take holidays from work, I do not take holidays from poker. I work to accumulate enough money to pay my bills for the rest of the year.
Which, I intend, will consist of at least two holidays, possibly three. That's a nice number of holidays to look forward to from September 1 to December 31, isn't it?
Possibilities:
A Spanish villa in early/mid September. May book one and invite some friends to come visit. How balla is that?
A solos trip to Morocco in November. This is a week that includes a night in a Bedouin tent, a trip on a camel, and a visit to the northern Sahara, "off-piste" (or whatever the desert equivalent of that is). Unique in that it would be my first visit to a country that I can never remember how to spell (there are others, btw; Lichtenstein, Andorra)
And a trip to LV in December. I'm trying to work out how to spend my soon-to-expire air miles on an upgrade, but it seems to me that if you book it online you just do so "on a promise". I may resort to the telephone on this one, although talking to Branston Inc Hyderabad will possibly not put me in the best of moods.
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It didn't take long for the Party Poker short-stackers to turn out in force (see my earlier post about the good rakeback deal). Mainly German, they seem to appear at between 5pm and 6pm CET, hanging around for four or five hours, indicating (to me) that they are mainly students.
More irritating than their existence (I actually like games where the manority of players is short-stacked) is their habit of sitting out when conditions are not perfect for them. It would definitely be nice if most of them suffered a fatal country-and-age-specific form of cancer....
The deep joy is to see their fury when they lose a 60:40 shot.
If you have to play these guys, try to get two immediately on your left and two immediately on your right. If the big stacks are sitting together on the other side of the table, you have a superb position, because effectively you can play deep-stack and short-stack simultaneously.
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| It was no-one what done it |
[12 Jul 2009|02:27pm] |
One of the most dangerous sentence forms is the passive voice. Not for nothing is one of the (many) rules of journalism, "use the active voice unless it absolutely can't be avoided".
Unfortunately, in the real world, I'm encountering the passive voice more and more often. A couple of weeks ago a sales guy said to me, referring to an extremely dodgy contract that another sales guy had sold a couple of years previously, "They were sold a dodgy contract". Not "X sold them a dodgy contract", or "we sold a dodgy contract", because that would have shown where the blame lay. By putting something into the passive voice, the blame is "dissipated".
Then, yesterday, in what looks likely to become one of the great tragic cases of modern teaching (the arrest for attempted murder of a much-liked teacher at a school in Mansfield), headteacher Maureen Corbett wrote a letter to parents of the school. This letter should be taken up by Nigel Planer in his "master class" series on BBC (a new one this week on BBC 4, don't miss it);
Ms Corbett wrote:I'm writing to let you know that there has been an incident involving a pupil. The student was injured and has been taken to hospital, where he is receiving treatment. The parents of the pupil have been informed".
Any apologist for this kind of sentence construction has spent too long either politicking or working in a spin department. I'm almost surprised that the letter didn't open with the sentence "This letter is being written to you...." which would have made the passive constructions four for four.
But the whole article isn't that much better. It begins with "A science teacher has been charged...", and in para 2 starts "The pupil, who was seriously injured..." and, with one active construction at the start of para 3, returns to the passive at the start of paragraphs 4, 5 and 6. And the quote from the police officer in the case actually does achieve the gold medal of four for four. On the other hand, I can understand it in the police officer's case, because policespeak is universally in the passive and, as far as I recall, has been for as long as I have been able to read.
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Mark Lawson wrote a piece in yesterday's Guardian on "sexism in TV". The general thrust of his argument, with which I do not disagree, is that for women there is an "age apartheid" that very few can defeat. This applies to acting and to presenting. The trigger for the Lawson article was the replacement of Arlene Phillips.
Where I disagree with Lawson is his conclusion that it's a "Strictly Come Sexism" matter. It's an ageism matter. Basically, if you are a young woman you have a better chance than a young man of moving ahead quickly. However, there is a downside. Your career, like that of a sportsman, is shorter. You fly higher, earlier, and then crash and burn. There's an easy way to test whether the "presenter/actor" syndrome is sexist or ageist. Count the number of people on TV and then compare the number of women vs men. Then compare the number of people over 40 and under 40. If there are far more men than women, and an equal number of men over 40 as are under 40, but far fewer women over 40 than under 40, then it's clearly a sexist matter. However, if there are an equal number of men and women, but the age distribution is different, then it's an ageist matter. Women, basically, get their fair dibs on TV, but the allocation is skewed according to age.
While Arlene Phillips has been replaced by, yes, two younger women, the male presenter carries on, meaning that the younger men waiting in the wings will just have to wait a little bit longer...
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Martin Amis, Al Alvarez and melvyn Bragg were gathered in Manchester to discuss suicide. Amis advised "don't be an immigrant, don't be Romanian, don't live where the sun doesn't shine". He said that suicide was "a bad marriage with life" and "the ultimate crisis of the self". (Note that an Amis character in Money is called John Self). Much though I admire Amis, particularly his courage in taking some dry history and turning it into much-needed polemic (Koba) I think that Alvarez nailed it rather better, calling depression "rage turning in on the self" and that "once in depression, everything is seen in terms of self".
Alvarez, as you may know, wrote the best book I have read on suicide, The Savage God. In curious synchronicity, I came across it (as part of my post-grad thesis on Vicky, who killed himself) at just about the same time as I first sat with Al at a poker table. Not only was my thesis subject a suicide case, but his father killed himself, and his fourth wife killed herself. In that sense, I think that, like Al, suicide is an area in which I know at least a little bit about the matter in hand.
I was thinking of that when I read of the suicide last Sunday of 24-year-old Anjool Malde, who chose to go to Coq d'Argent at No 1 Poultry, order a ten quid glass of champagne and then jump from the roof. I doubt that I was the only bloke who mused "well, at that price, I hope that he drank the champagne first".
The one thing that really stands out about this is that the time from decision to act was probably less than a couple of hours. This was a clever kid, and, as the son of a psychologist, one would assume that he had at least a grounding of knowledge in the nature of suicide. And yet he still did it. His parents put out a statement and the killing sentennce to me was "Style meant everything to him and that's how he chose to mark his exit".
An "expert on suicide" (the ST's term) said "with a lot of suicides what we talk about is this ideal of social perfection".
I was talking to a friend of mine this week and she said that marketing research estimated that about 60% of purchases came about through insecurity rather than a "this will make me better" feeling. In other words, the majority of our advertising and marketing is pitched more along the lines of "if you don't buy this, you are worthless" rather than "if you do buy this, you will be better". We are bombarded with messages that are designed to make us more insecure rather than more secure. The majority of advertising seeks to make us worried rather than aspirational. It is the nature of the modern world for the sellers of goods and services to make us feel bad about ourselves.
Is it therefore any wonder that anyone who fails to live up to this ideal of perfection who, and this is the key point, had actually thought that it was within their grasp, should feel that they have failed in a far greater way than the likes of you or I? Let's face it, if an advert says to me (subliminally, of course) "if you don't buy this you are a piece of shit", then I can happily say back "D'uh, tell me something I don't know, Mr Advertising Man".
But for the bright young things, it's a harder concept to accept, and if something appears that will not only prevent that bright young thing from obtaining the things to which he aspires, but which also threatens to take away the things that he already has, then, well, perhaps the feeling of having let everyone else down and, in the words of the teacher to the balloon, let yourself down, could well become too much to bear.
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| Torchwood |
[09 Jul 2009|10:38am] |
I've been enjoying Torchwood, which my work colleague opposite me enchantingly confused with Deadwood.
So last night, while watching it, I tried an experiment of three-tabling some six-max $25 buy-in on the laptop. The big difference was that I stacked the tables rather than tiled them.
Once you move into 10-tabling or more, "stacking" is the only way to go. Result was a couple of misclicks in an hour, neither of them fatal. More difficult to cope with is that you have no idea on how your big decisions turn out until you next return to the table and look at your stack size. I had one hand with A5s where I misclicked a limp rather than a raise. I think, BB raised (he was laggy at 35/30) and I called. The flop ambled down 855 and I got it all-in on the flop. Then the other tables appeared and I had no idea what happened. Next time I saw the table my auto-reload had kicked in. The hand history showed that I had lost to 88855.
Only later, when I looked at my graph on Hold Em Manager, did I see that my EV for the session was positive. I sought out this hand and found that opponent had got it all-in with A8, hitting an 8 on the river.
Now, the emotional impact after the end of the session was little more than one of "phew, at least I got the money in good". In other words, stacking reduces tiltability. This is good. On the bad side, it's much harder to know how much you are up or down (or is this another plus?)
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| Getting a handle on Darling |
[08 Jul 2009|12:54pm] |
Today's paper from Alistair Darling is meant to be a look at financial regulation, but it is, inevitably, seen just as much as a look at the financial system that got into so much trouble.
When a political party in power fucks it up beyond any credible level of disbelief, one of the guaranteed things you will hear from a cloned minister is that the government "has failed to get its message across". Often this is complete bollocks. Given the number of spinners employed by government these days, one would have thought it an impossibility to get the message across. Usually the message has been received loud and clear, and rejected.
So it is with the paper today. Everyone is focusing on the tripartite system set up by Gordon Brown — the Treasury, the FSA and the Bank of England. There seems to be some kind of curious idea that the system must be at fault.
My personal view is that there wasn't too much wrong with the system. Where it went wrong was in part systemic -- regulators nearly always employ people not good enough to make it in the private sector who also, often but not invariably, have a civil servant mindset rather than a vcapitalistic entrepreneurial mindset —- and in part practical —— the people at the FSA just looked in the wrong place, worrying about their remit rather than what might be the actual problem.
In other words, if the remit had been right, and if the staff had been up to it, I think that the current system would have worked. This paper will focus on how the power should be allocated, but should also be focusing on the remit. And that remit should not be "look at last year's problem".
The other aspect of the paper released today is that it will look at last year's problem.
I'm not sure if this is true, but it has been written in more than one place that capital requirements will be toughened and that assets will need to be "more liquid".
If this is so, then the government really has lost the plot. One can see how their mind has worked
"Goodness, if the people want to get their money back, the banks have to sell things, and if they all want to sell the same thing, then the price goes down, and the bank might become insolvent! That will never do. Let's make it a law that the banks have to keep liquid assets on hand so that, if everyone wants their money back, they can get it".
Anyone who has watched "It's A Wonderful Life" will see the lunacy of this argument. The whole point of banks is that people deposit short and the bank lends long (i.e., into mortgages). Their survival depends on confidence. If you stop banks dealing in "illiquid" products you don't solve the problem. You exacerbate it. Because three things could happen:
1) The banks only take deposits that match their liabilities. I.E, they borrow long and lend long. Fixed-term 25-year variable rate deposits anyone?
2) The banks borrow short and only lend short. That just about murders the credit system stone dead.
3) The banks lend long and borrow short, and solve this by "converting" the long loans into securitized short loans. This is a smokes and mirrors con of the type that got us into the mess in the first place.
As a final nail in the coffin, how do you define "liquid assets"? In the good times, when everyone is trading, lots of things have a market for buyers and sellers. But when it goes wrong, the liquidity vanishes. A liquid asset is something for which there is always a willing buyer and a willing seller. But there might be no buyers tomorrow. In other words, an obligation to maintain stocks in "liquid assets" only solves the problem when it isn't a problem. As soon as it becomes a problem, the rule ceases to be a solution.
I think that the major point here is that the government cannot be seen to say "to be honest, it's now a matter of getting confidence back into the market, and we've done what we can there". How do they stop the same thing happening again? Simple. Stop lenders from parcelling up loans and selling them straight out of the back door.
When Bush "solved" the threat of recession post-dotcom insanity he created a credit bubble. But, what IS a credit bubble? Basically it's a situation where you have money to lend, but not enough credit-worthy borrowers. Solution? Lend the money, parcel up the loan and sell it on in securitized form. And thus the moral hazard is born.
If a lender is barred from leveraging up in this way at more than, say, 75%, he retains a 25% risk in the loan. The superb "returns on equity" were a matter of gearing up, not of improved performance. It was, in other waords, a fake.
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| More pickle? |
[07 Jul 2009|02:37pm] |
A week might be a long time in politics, but fifteen months is no time at all in the land of corporate reporting. Virgin Holdings which includes a 51% stake Virgin Atlantic and the Virgin rail interests, (an old but revealing portrait of how Brnason and the Virgin companies tie together can be found here http://docenti.luiss.it/boccardelli/files/2009/05/15virgin.pdf) has just now released its numbers for financial year 2007-08. Richard Branson did not hold a personal press conference to do it.
Virgin Holdiongs managed to report a one-off loss of £324.3m (net loss for VH in the period = £227,3m) for the year, because it finally had to book the losses that Virgin Megastores had accumulated over the years. Although Virgin Holdings had revealed those losses in its previous statements, it hadn't written them through to the bottom line. It had "rolled them over" on the grounds that Virgin Megastores would make it back in the future. When the pile of crap was sold to Zavvi, that was no longer an option. Hence the one-off loss for that year.
Those accounts also reveal that Virgin paid Zavvi £61m to break a licensing agreement for the use of the brand name.
There's more mess at Virgin Holdings. Virgin Bride, launched to much fanfare (personal appearance by Richard Branson in bridal gown) in 1996, was sold off for a quid after its one remaining store was shut.
But, complicated though Virgin Holdings is (and complex though the structure of Branson's own holdings in that company are, with various offshore trusts comeing into play), this is only part of the story.
Barfair is another Virgin Holding company. It has the drinks and holiday businesses. It made money last year, but it promptly lent twice the £55m it made to Virgin America. Barfair theoretically has net debts of £1.4bn, but Virgin said that much of this sum is inflated by "inter-company loans".
Ah yes, inter-company loans. And what might the details of those be? Well, once again, that's where it gets complicated. Inn fact it's only when there are significant minority shareholders (such as the poor stiffed Singapore Airlines at Virgin Atlantic) that we mere innocents can get some idea of what is really going on. There are 200 operating companies in the Virgin Holding web, and 150 more in Virgin companies outside that umbrella. The ability to roll over losses clearly helped Virgin Holding to 'profit' of £87m in 2006, despite losses at Virgin Drinks (makes of the scrumptospewlicious Virgin Cola) and Virgin Bride.
The real question is, does Virgin make money at the operating level? And my strong suspicion is that, no, it does not. Branson survives by buying and selling shares in those companies. He also makes money from licensing the brand name (although even this is now looking shakier), and also he survives from the "money tomorrow" concept (see NTL/Virgin Media), which can cover a plethora of sins under the phrase "R&D". This can actually work. He raised £800m when he sold Virgin Mobile and gained a stake in NTL. If another stake in NTL were to be sold for a greater amount, then Branson would have made a "profit" on the deal, even if the company itself had made no operating profit at all.
Virgin undeniably has assets, but much of that could be seen to be the Virgin name, while a significant minority could be seen to be Branson himself -- free advertising for the asking.
And Virgin has sustained this model for going on for 40 years now. Is it sustainable? We shall see.
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| Shorts |
[06 Jul 2009|12:35pm] |
I finally decided on my sterling-dollar target. A quick look at the charts indicated a profit-taking point of just north of $1.54. Indeed, there's a double signal for this (one in a medium time scale and one in a long one). That kind of thing is so rare that one is tempted to say that it is guaranteed to screw up as a result. However, I was sorely of a mind to double down this morning, even though the rapid drop in the first few hours of trading would normally indicate a clawback later on in the week.
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The Money section of the FT on Satuirday had an article on "expected value", pointing out that this was very different from "expected return" (one is the mean, the other is the mode). However, somewhat to my disappointment, there was no mention of volatility and "risk of ruin". I guess that the concept of "risk of ruin" is not something that the FT personal finance section would like to emphasize.
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The decision to refer to the Serious Fraud Office the findings of the four-year independent inquiry (original timestable, one year; cost so far to British taxpayer, £16m) into the collapse of MG Rover is one of the great scandals of modern government.
As the Phoenix Four and others have observed, this is the most blatant "kicking into touch" that this government has ever tried. It was bad enough when Blair overruled the SFO when it came to the Saudis (business before law...) but now they are using the SFO's legendary slowness to keep under wraps the findings of the inquiry. And the SFO is slow when they have funding. How much help will they get if the government doesn't want the report to be released?
Of course, all of this doesn't mean that the Phoenix Four are innocent of the charges of aset-stripping that have been levelled at them. After all, they got a very good deal when they bought MG Rover in 2000 (with the backing of the then Labour Government) and they got an even better deal when they were bailed out in 2005 by the then Labour Government. For five years they paid themselves very handsomely because, of course, you need to pay high salaries (a) to incentivize the executives and (b) to ensure that you get the best.
Curious, therefore, that the company still went tits up.
The grey area here is: should executives who pay themselves rather high salaries and then see their company go bust be prosecuted for fraud? Players of 1830 won't have any trouble in taking a view on this.
However, the SFO doesn't work by the far superior standards of boardgame justice, so I doubt that we will see any recommendation that criminal charges be brought any time soon.
And, even if we eventually do see such a recommendation. Well, remember the Saudis.
Alternatively, if the Tories are in power whent he findings come out, it might be more a case of "Remember The TV programme 'The Trial of Tony Blair'".
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| Saturdays |
[05 Jul 2009|02:11pm] |
I decided that I really had to get the ironing done last night, so I turned on the television and the DVD in order to catch up on the Doctor Who Christmas Special (and quite good it was too, despite the fact that I mistook the gorgeous Dervla Kirwan for the gorgeous Miranda Richardson).
By pure chance I hapenned across five girls dancing, with five gay-looking bare-chested guys dancing behind them. All the girls were also lip-synching (not very well) to a "pop" song of the worst kind -- one that could have been written by a computer, and quite possibly was.
What was most frightening was the audience. I know that these people are encouraged to "be enthusiastic" by the Charlottes and Sophies who for some reason (the pension plan, probably) become floor managers at the BBC, but some of these people were clearly loving it on their own time rather than the BBCs. Up they stood, clapping away. And then it struck me that, basically, this was the summit of their ambitions. They wanted to be able to dance like that and to dress like that. With luck, they might even become a WAG. (Well, without trying to be unkind, no amount of Tilly and Susannah could have turned most of these into WAGs.)
I thought that was dispiriting enough, until the follow-up appeared, which was Graham Norton standing next to a bloke dressed up in a Hamster suit, in a giant Hamster Wheel. "Where are you from?" Graham asked the hamster. "Just outside Guildford", he replied, clearly assuming that, although where he lived might be thought of as anonymous, the mere mention of the gian metropolis "Guildford" would eliminate any confusion.
At this point Doctor Who kicked in, and I was spared any more of the nightmare that is Saturday-night prime-time TV on the BBC.
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Reading the 2+2 Internet poker forums (let's just accept that form of the plural as ok, shall we?) is always illuminating, if not particularly interesting. For a start, it gives you a good benchmark. If the average 2+2 poster thinks it's an awful idea, then you can be fairly sure that it's good for me. That's because the average 2+2 poster who plays at $100 buy-in is a 24-table grinder on Pokerstars. As with all other points, these people are beatable, but I'd rather they weren't there.
I've adopted a slightly different table-search pattern on Stars, because the "default" method I had (biggest average pot size) did not seem to generate the best tables (for me). For why? because big average pot sizes meant a significant number of pre-flop reraises. And a large number of pre-flop reraises, as a rule, usually indicates good aggressive players.
So I switched to VPIP and stopped worrying about average pot sizes, provided the average pot size was above 8x the big blind. This gets me a higher proportion of passive players who might not give you the best EV, but do make it easier to multi-table. Fewer tough decisions for potentially all of your stack.
Now, I know that courting volatility can be good and profitable. It also makes for more interesting hands. On the downside, it makes it much harder to get a decent hand throughput. The extra amount that you might or might not expect to win has to be balanced against greater swonginess and the fact that three-tabling is probably (for me) the comfortable maximum at the moment.
Have run well for a few days, with one five-minute exception where I lost two buy-ins without even blinking. Both times it was to a laggy player because their ranges are so much wider.
The second hands had me wondering for agest about whether I could and/or should have got away from it.
He's on the button and I'm in the BB. I have JTs. It's passed round to the button and he makes it 3x. I could reraise here, but this guy is laggy enough to shove pre-flop. So, I call. $6 in pot, he has $70 behind.
Flop comes JT8 two hearts (not my suit, obv). I have top 2 pair. He bets half the pot and I raise him something like $12. He calls. $30 in pot, he has $58 behind. Turn brings something innocuous like 4s. He bets $9, which is a bit of a smelly amount. I reckon that 90% of the time he's on some kind of draw here and wants to get to the river cheaply.
So, I raise enough to make his decision to call wrong if he's on a draw, something like $22 more. The downside to this is that if he now shoves I am committed. He promptly shoves and I call. He tables Q9 for the flopped straight. My 4-outer does not materialize (online poker is rigged, I tell you). Rebuy.
As you know, I'm loath to call any hand where I get stacked off a "cooler". But it's hard to see how I get away from this. JTs doesn't really merit a reraise preflop in this situation. On the flop, against his range, a failure by me to raise is criminal.
Then on the turn, his bet keeps his range wide enough to make a raise by me better than a call. This means that nearly half my effective stack is in the pot, and even his reshove on the turn could be a desperate semi-bluff.
So it goes.
______________
|
|
| Ireland nationalized |
[04 Jul 2009|08:40am] |
Alistair Darling stepped in this morning and announced the nationalization of Ireland. The UK's finance minister said that the country had failed to fulfil its 1922 franchise and was walking away from long-agreed obligations.
"Recent defaults in the financial sector and on bonds are in direct contravention agreed in the renewable 1922 franchise. In order to ensure a smooth continued running of Ireland, the UK government has decided to step in".
Sir Bob Geldof has been appointed CEO of New Ireland, with Mr Darling acting as chief financial officer.
Sir Bob said that it would be a challenging new role. "We need the fucking money and we need it now!" he told the Catholic Herald.
Of major concern was that English customers of Ireland who were planning to travel to Dublin on stag and hen weekends should not suffer. Mr Darling said:
"It was vital to take immediate action to avoid chaos at Luton Airport on Friday, where thousands of Ireland customers gather every week. There were strong rumours that, had we not stepped in, the customers would have found Dublin closed or, at best, only offering one pint of Guinness per customer per evening".
Irish prime minister Brian Cowan was taken by surprise by the announcement.
"What the fuck is the idiot talking about?" he asked.
Meanwhile, Sharon Blotto, who is getting married next Saturday at Tilbury Registry Office, told the BBC while she waited for her Ryanair plane at Stansted, said:
"It's terrible. Me and my mates were looking forward to a weekend of getting fucking smashed, and the next thing we know, the woman at the desk was telling us that Ireland was broke and shut and we could go to North Wales instead but it would cost us an extra two 'undred quid and the baggage would have to go to Ireland anyway".
Martin McGuinness, pro tem foreign secretary in New Ireland plc, whic is being redomiciled to the Cayman Islands "because it's nicer there", said that the major task would be to ensure that foreign relations are kept going as smoothly as possible.
"Obviously a united Ireland has always been a dream of mine", he said, and this new situation is, in that sense, very welcome".
Northern Ireland will not be a part of New Ireland plc, but will be a wholly owned subsidiary, registered in Switzerland and with its head office in Douglas, Isle of Man. "We chose the IoM because it's the nearest place not in the EU", said Mr Darling.
Northern Ireland (IoM) will be a special purpose vehicle, with its debt securitized on Douglas (III) notes, paying 6.5% annually in euros, redeemable at any time if you are a Protestant, but maturing only in 2060 if you are a Catholic.
George Osborne said that this was another example of the British taxpayer having to step in to save an operation that was allowed to become "too big to fail".
"Personally, I would have let it go under", he said. "They took it all in the good times -- you can't drive down a dual carriageway in Ireland without seeing a sign saying 'Thank the lord for the EU transport minister'. So they should realize that with privilege comes, er, well, something comes with it. I just had the privilege bit when I was young, you understand. What is it? With privilege comes a nice car? No, that doesn't sound right".
Vince Cable of the Liberal Democrats was away for the weekend at his main or his secondary residence, he can never remember which it is at any particular time.
______________
__________________
|
|
| Pondersosa |
[03 Jul 2009|02:44pm] |
Cooler today, TF.
Party have shifted over to nine-max. Not sure of the rationale, exceopt that it copies FTP and Stars.
Thinking about the rakeback situation, I was wondering whether it might not actually be in my interest to seek out contributory rake. The paradox is that, at contributory rake tables, you say to yourself "ahh, if only this table was non-contributory rake". But that is to misunderstand the rapid dynamics of online poker. Non-contributory rake works for you (or for me) only if you play fewer hands on average than the weighted average of all your opponents combined. In the days of lots of loose-passive players, this was fine. But in the days of shortstacked rakeback pros, it obviously is not fine. Contributory rake is worse for them than it is for you. Therefore contributory rake is better for you.
+++++
With 20 days holiday left this year, 15 of which I have to take before Dec 31, I really ought to start thinking about booking something. And I need to get my accounts done too. Sigh, always something, isn't there....
___________
|
|
| Scorchio |
[02 Jul 2009|07:36am] |
First of all, big upps to Andy for clocking the Sunday Warm Up on Stars on, er, Sunday. Another nice six-figure earner.
Not sure how he kept the concentration in the heat, which is beginning to get a little wearing.
I made it to the Lloyd's Press Party last night — and actually bumped into some non-Informa people whom I knew! Mairi had been at the Films award, while one of the Sarahs whom I met in Gibraltar (from Post) was also there. Heavens, I'm becoming quite the networker.
++++++
I made some back of the envelope calculations on how many hands I need to play this month if I want to achieve the various "targets", and it doesn't look good. Alternatives include moving up in stakes during the week as well as at weekends, playing more tables at a time, or giving up on sleep.
A good last day in the first half pushed the winnings to $11.8k (cash) or $14.3k (including the holiday prize). That's a tough act for me to follow in the second half at the stakes I am currently playing.
Oh, and Noble Poker put $25 in my account 'cos I hadn't used it for ages. Ultimate did the same and I have managed to lose $15 of it. Had got it up to $35 (with $18 at a 5c-10c table! Wow!) when I managed to get it all in on the turn against a nutter who had a flush draw. 72% EV is no good. Must Remember.
Noble gave me a chance to look at the micro-stakes NL tables on the I-Poker network. Millions of them, all with 12%-13% VPIP. That's one hell of a lot of bots playing each other to death. Of course, I-Poker doesn't care, since it's all income. But it does rather restrict the opportunities to do anything with the $25. I suspect I might have to try some PLO, or learn one of the variant games.
+++++
Going through a bit of a tough time of it emotionally, but it will be worth it in the long run. Wish I was flying to the Cote d'Azur tomorrow.
++++++
Went short on sterling-dollar yesterday at 1.6456, less than an hour before it spiked upwards by about half a dollar. However, common sense seems to have prevailed this morning and I am back in the black. Not really sure about my target, however (although I have a solid stop-loss of $1.70). It's a September contract, and I see quite a lot of potential sterling weakness. $1.47? Or take the short-term $1.56/$1.60?
IG Index has increased the spread, the bastards. It's now 12 cents for the three-month contract. Put in perspective, that means that if I am right 60% of the time and wrong 40% of the time, and I take equal profits and losses when I am right and when I am wrong, then IG Index takes half my winnings. If I am right just 55% of the time, all I do is break even.
On the plus side, the added volatility makes it more likely that I will be right more often! (Discuss).
__________
|
|
| First half-round up |
[29 Jun 2009|10:01pm] |
First, the hard figures:
| SITE |
BONUS |
$50 |
$100 |
$200 |
R'BACK |
$400 |
$10 |
Tourney |
$600 |
Grand Total |
| PTY |
$884 |
-$143 |
$1843 |
$1977 |
$66 |
$896 |
--- |
--- |
--- |
$5,523 |
| Pacific |
$31 |
-$38 |
$674 |
$491 |
$467 |
$8 |
--- |
--- |
$117 |
$1750 |
| Littlewoods |
$142 |
--- |
$2269 |
$261 |
--- |
-$6 |
--- |
--- |
--- |
$2666 |
| Stars |
$590 |
--- |
-$590 |
-$55 |
--- |
--- |
--- |
$3620 |
--- |
$3,565 |
| Ultimate |
$25 |
--- |
--- |
--- |
--- |
--- |
-$3 |
--- |
--- |
$22 |
| FTP |
$300 |
--- |
--- |
--- |
--- |
--- |
--- |
--- |
--- |
$300 |
| Grand Total |
$1972 |
-$181 |
$4196 |
$2674 |
$533 |
$898 |
-$3 |
$3620 |
$117 |
$13,826 |
( more details )
|
|
| Stories that smell |
[29 Jun 2009|01:25pm] |
Call it experience, but every so often I see a story that just doesn't feel right.
The general rules that I use when looking at stories these days entail the questions "what's the source?" and "in whose interest is it that this story is printed?"
This http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/south_east/8123749.stm story just didn't feel right. I remember a decade or so ago there was a tale about a faulty two pence (the queen not having a necklace, I believe). It was an urban myth, but that didn't stop people looking in their pockets to check.
Now, look carefully at this story. Note also that it appeared in 20 different places this morning (and on GMTV), and it would appear that Nick Hart, from "The London Mint Office" (no connection to the Royal Mint) is quoted in all of them.
Then we see that the Sky story refers to the website www.undated20p.com where "lucky owners" can regiser their details and post the undated coin "back".
Well, not quite "back", since this is not a Royal Mint web site. It's a, yes, you've guess it, a London Mint Office web site.
All of the headlines say something along the lines of "worth £50". What this actually means is that if you are among the first 10,000 registrants with The London Mint Office, you will get £50. The Sky News Story said that they are worth £50 "if immediately returned", once again implying that the Royal Mint will pay it. Not so, of course.
In fact, when did this mis-issue take place?
Now it gets even more interesting, and it's a fine indication of the laziness of most journalists. Because the London Mint Office concedes that "Last year there was an incredibly unusual lapse in the strict quality control at the Royal Mint. A batch of 20p coins were issued with mis-matched sides."
Curiously, our marvellous press didn't seem to catch up on the point last year, did they?
Which is strange, because the details are not that hard to find. For example, if you go to:
http://cgi.ebay.ph/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=360156884993
you can see that, far from being "worth" £50, the actual value on the open market is no more than £25.01.
But the more important point is, who will be checking up on the London Mint Office? What external verification will there be that the fifty quid will be paid in cash to each applicant?
I remember Martin Hammon getting himself on the front page of the local Evesham paper by appearing to wave a wad of money that he would spend if the Evesham cinema could be saved. A closer reading of the small print revealed that Martin offered to match , up to a hundred pounds anyone else's contribution to Martin's own "Save The Cinema" campaign. Good publicity for Martin at very little cost.
The London Mint Office presumably can't believe its luck that nearly all the national press, the BBC, GMTV and Sky took up this story. Any one of them could have found it here
http://www.predecimal.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=4131
on December 13 last year.
Indeed, the Royal Mint quote used in many of today's stories
“The Royal Mint can confirm that a small number of new design 20 pence coins have been incorrectly struck using the obverse from the previous design, resulted in these coins having no date.
“The issue has now been resolved and the Royal Mint would like to reassure members of the public that these coins are legal tender.
is actually from last December.
The story was also published in Token Publishing here:
http://www.tokenpublishing.com/issue.asp?iid=254
This item is interesting because it gives an estimate of the number around and the chance of a single 20p being one of the mule variations. If it's a single "batch" then it would be between 100,000 and 200,000. That would mean that there's about a 0.2% chance (one chance in 500) that a random 20p would be a mule. But, and here's the important point, if it's a bashed about 20p, then it will be worth far less than if it is in "Mint" condition. Hence, I feel, the importance in checking that the London Mint Office lives up to its promise and permits an external party to verify that it has really sent out half a million quid to the lucky applicants. I see that the London Mint Office, established in 2006, says that it is part of the Norwegian Samlerhuset group (www.samlerhuset.no), although there is also a Dutch Samlerhuset, which is a direct marketing organization.
Oh, and, yes, I did check my 20 pences...
____________
|
|
| Bloob |
[28 Jun 2009|09:31am] |
I got caught driving in a flash flood yesterday. I'd already had a hold-up driving down to Canterbury, caused by a BMW deciding that driving along the hard shoulder upside down for a couple of hundred yards might be an entertaining experiment — an opinion not, I imagine, shared by the presumably now dead driver.
Then I was driving Graham to Chilham where we planned to embark on a 5km walk. Chilham is a very pretty village. I had last been there over 30 years ago with some Kent University football and rugby types, where they quaffed much beer in the manner that university sports types do. It's still pretty, although its appeal was slightly reduced by the fact that (a) we couldn't find it, and (b) rain was coming down in torrents, interspersed with rather spectacular lightning strikes.
We had driven past the correct turning to the village, partly caused by Graham thinking that the village was on our right rather than on our left (caused by our bearing right a mile or so earlier rather than bearing left). This meant that we were driving down a narrow B Road, through surface water just this side of petrifying. That was when I saw perhaps my second fatality of the day -- a motorbike skidded onto the verge and police and ambulance waving people through a single lane of six inches of water.
The planned walk was cancelled (although we did eventually find Chilham).
However, the day was not wasted. Dinner in The Goods Shed (the former engine shed of Canterbury West station) was my idea of how a restaurant should be. Spacious, high ceilings, gorgeous weather, an almost al fresco feel. It would have been perfect had there been a canal outside the windows, rather than platform 2 of Canterbury West.
++++++
My mum appears to have sprained her ankle, so I am on double shopping duty at the moment. With no bank holidays in sight and no ordinary holidays booked (or planned, despite me still having 20 days available!) it's just a long grind ahead for a couple of months. The price war in the poker world is having the bad effect of me targeting a rather higher number of hands played per month than I have achieved previously. My track record in this is not good, although last month I did crawl to a $1,350 profit on the 26,000 hands I clocked up. That's a crap rate ($5.20 a hundred), but better than a loss.
The problem is, the marginal benefit for the "extra" hands is so good. I haven't tabulated it precisely, but I'd be surprised if at Party it was less than 5 cents a hand, while at Stars it might be about 4 cents a hand. That means that an extra 10k hands in a month nets me $500 before I even start winning. If I can manage my beginning-of-the-year EV of about eight bucks a hundred, that makes $1,300 EV for 10k hands. That's a nice hourly rate that's hard to reject provided that you can keep the mental focus to achieve it.
I really feel that I am still running bad at the moment. What's interesting is how circumspectly people are playing weak flushes these days. I had 7d5d in the big blind and got in for nothing. Flop came 8d4dJs and I led out for 3/4 of the pot. Opponent min-raised and I called. Turn came 3d and I check-called a half-pot bet. River was a black Ace and I led out for 40% of the pot. That means I (and my opponent) have only got about 20% of our stacks in play. Opponent flat calls and shows JdTd for the better flush.
Six months ago most players (including me) would have been getting stacked off with this kind of hand, but frequent players see so many flushes under flushes (I've had three in the past week) that it can no longer be called a cooler. The point is not how likely it is to occur; the point is, "what is opponent's range and what can he have that I can be beating?"
___________
|
|
| Death By Twitter |
[26 Jun 2009|08:46am] |
The death of Michael Jackson will surely go down in history as the first "very" famous death of the Twitter generation. When these 20-somethings are 50-something (it isn't far away, kids, even if you think that it is) they will be able to look back and say "And where were you when your mobile twitter feed told you that Michael Jackson was dead?
A piece of news that was too late for many of the early editions of UK papers is now old hat.
Many of those youngsters (many tens of thousands, in fact) will say "ahh yes, I was at Glastonbury that year", with perhaps one or two adding that "It flooded, of course, despite two weeks of fantastic weather beforehand. Springsteen and Neil Young were still alive then, but I mainly remember it being the debut for Dame Louise Golbey. Of course, she was a youngster then, rather than a Dame, not the world megastar that she is today".
+++++++
Ahhh, one of those mornings where there is one hell of a lot to write (for work). I could put 20 stories in the newsletter this morning. Sadluy, those damned things do not write themselves. So, although none is particularly sticky to write, the sheer volume makes it tiring. Indeed, I came to this after a two-hour stint, because I needed a break.
I'd often fit in a couple of hundred hands or more as a "break" at this point, but I've discovered that doing so really tires me out if I then have to go back to "insurance writing work". Whartever playing online poker is, it isn't relaxing.
Three very interesting hands on Pacific on Wednesday night, An A9, an AA and a KQ, I think. Must dig them out later today and post them with comments.
Oh well, back to work.
_____________
|
|
| Points win prizes |
[24 Jun 2009|12:42pm] |
There appears to be a bit of a price war going on in the poker world at the moment. Bonus cash on Pacific is accumulating far faster than it used to, and now Party Poker is using the previously outlawed term "rakeback".
In fact, the new Party scheme looks to be a rakeback dream. But this has its downside, that being; look what happened to the I-Poker network.
It would be soooo great if Part could stay as it is today with the new points scheme. But I know that it just won't happen. The shitbag 10%/9% short-stack multi-tablers will appear (may they all die horrible deaths). These players are beatable because they have to play ABC style (indeed, many on I-Poker are bots), but to beat them you have to "slightly out-bot them". It's tedious and marginal. very soon, the games become unplayable if you are a relaxed full-stack kind of player, and you go elsewhere. That leaves people like me facing fewer desirable opponents and many more undesirable opponents.
Luckily it can take up to six months for this to have its full impact, and I sincerely hope that it won't happen. But I'm not optimistic.
++++++
Went all way to Richard herring last night and it was sold out! Stupid of me because I could have reserved tickets online quite easily.
++++++
One of the most solid weeks of poker in the past year. No net win per day of more than $90 and no net loss greater than $60.
______
|
|
| Richard Herring |
[23 Jun 2009|11:46am] |
|
I will be going to The Compass in Penton Street, N1 (near Chapel Market) tonight to see Richard Herring in an Edinburgh preview. It kicks off at 8.30 and I am going to try to be there from 7.45pm onwards, if anyone would care to join me.
|
|
| The "I wish" syndrome |
[22 Jun 2009|02:08pm] |
There's a well-known logical fallacy that is based on a misinterpretation of the laws of cause and effect. In poker it's amazing how often you see this error, particularly when a player is on tilt.
Put simply, if you have a good hand, you tend to bet more into the pot.
This means that there is a positive correlation betwen strength of hand and bet size.
The misinterpretation is that, if you bet more into the pot, that makes your hand a better hand, one more likely to win. It's almost as if a player believes that, by putting a big bet into the pot, in some kind of quantum mechanics way you make it more likely that your opponent has worse cards.
The German government appears to have fallen into a similar trap. I'm grateful to Wolfgang Münchau for mentioning this in today's FT.
He reports that a balanced-budget law has been introduced into the German constitution. From 2016 it will be illegal to run a deficit of more than 0.35% of GDP. From 2020 the federal states won't be allowed to run a deficit at all.
As is often the case, the most significant macro-economic events tend to go unnoticed at the time. The implications of this law are horrific for the eurozone. Either the euro survives but Germany becomes an economic basket-case, or the unilateral rules brought in in Germany will stress parity of the euro so severely that the currency itself will collapse.
That doesn't mean that it's going to be a one-way downtrend for the euro -- one thing that will help it in the short term is that the dollar is heading for two or three years of structural weakness. And in the long run we are all dead. But just because you can't make short-term profits from something doesn't mean that you should ignore it. This law, in effect, is a death sentence for the euro, probably by 2025 at the latest, 2016 at the earliest.
Given Germany's love of the principle of the euro, this might, therefore, seem like an odd financial decision to make. Why did they do it?
Well, on the one level, the Germans hate debt. Growth should be gradual and funded from internal resources at both a macro and micro-level. Leveraging a loan so that a small company can grow quickly is seen as rather louche in Germany -- the kind of thing done by those who are not quite respectable (i.e., non-Germans),
But, on the other level, it's this error of causation. Running a budget surplus happens automatically when times are good (hell, even Gordon Brown managed it in the late 1990s). Therefore, good times and budget surpluses are positively correlated. Therefore, the flawed logic goes, if we make budget deficits illegal, good times will last forever!
This, quite clearly, is economic moronism. When times get bad you need deficits to boost the economy. It's a cure. Look at it in terms of the human body. When I am well, I don't take pills. When I am ill, I take medicine. Therefore taking medicine is positively correlated with being ill. Therefore if we ban all medicines, no-one will get sick.
All hope is not lost. The law can be changed, although it will require a two-thirds majority and the fight will be against the inbred German prejudice against debt. But the alternative, the death of the beloved euro, might focus a few German minds in the direction of common sense.
_____________
|
|
| Two hands |
[21 Jun 2009|08:46am] |
It's been a grinding week with, occasionally, some volatility thrown in. Both these hands raise interesting points.
In hand one, we have a situation where two regulars are aware of each other's ranges, and act accordingly.
$400 USD NL
Seat 5 is the button
Total number of players : 10
Seat 1: The_eDude ( $515.85 USD )
Seat 2: Sharky_666 ( $784.65 USD )
Seat 3: Malek055 ( $170.20 USD )
Seat 4: Villain ( $406 USD )
Seat 5: Mayonnaise32 ( $551.60 USD )
Seat 6: Hero ( $396 USD )
Seat 7: XprSMusiC ( $227 USD )
Seat 8: CaliSquad92 ( $298.49 USD )
Seat 9: BKAlter ( $386 USD )
Seat 10: itteronja ( $570.24 USD )
Hero posts small blind [$2 USD].
XprSMusiC is sitting out
CaliSquad92 posts big blind [$4 USD].
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to Hero [ A♣; A♡; ]
BKAlter folds
itteronja folds
The_eDude folds
Sharky_666 folds
Malek055 folds
Villain raises [$16 USD]
Villain's range here is rather wide, about 20% to 25% of all hands
Mayonnaise32 folds
Hero raises [$42 USD]
Because villain's range is wide, I'm going to be reraising with a significantly wider range than if villain had raised in early or raised an early limper. Say, 10% to 12% of hands. Villain is aware of this.
CaliSquad92 folds
Villain calls [$28 USD]
** Dealing Flop ** [ 6♡;, 5◊;, 8♡; ]
Hero bets [$86 USD]
This is a rag flop with drawing potential. I'm probably continuation betting 95% of hands here, so my range is still wide. Villain is aware of this
Villain is all-In [$362 USD]
Because villain knows I have a wide range, a shove has good fold equity. He can assume (correctly) that I will fold overcards and probably any underpair. He probably doesn't know what I will do with JJ or TT, but he has to guess that I will not lay down AA to QQ here. Surprisingly, QQ is, according to my stats, a fold in this situation. But since JJ comes out as a call, I'll make this a statistical freak. In fact I am calling here with any over pair, and also with a pair of sevens.
Hero is all-In [$266 USD]
** Dealing Turn ** [ 5♠ ]
** Dealing River ** [ 8♣; ]
Hero shows [ A♣;, A♡; ]two pairs, Aces and Eights.
Villain shows [ 9♣;, 6♣; ]two pairs, Eights and Sixes.
Hero wins $793 USD from the main pot with two pairs, Aces and Eights.
This hand occurred on another table a minute or so later
$400 USD NL
Seat 4 is the button
Total number of players : 10
Seat 1: Hero ( $412 USD )
Seat 2: Malek055 ( $174 USD )
Seat 3: Sharky_666 ( $447.40 USD )
Seat 4: Calling Station ( $323.20 USD )
Seat 5: Mayonnaise32 ( $400 USD )
Seat 6: Villain ( $429.85 USD )
Seat 7: BetForALivin ( $400 USD )
Seat 8: itteronja ( $448.90 USD )
Seat 9: XprSMusiC ( $62 USD )
Seat 10: The_eDude ( $617.09 USD )
Mayonnaise32 posts small blind [$2 USD].
Villain posts big blind [$4 USD].
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to Hero [ 9♣; 9♡; ]
BetForALivin folds
itteronja folds
XprSMusiC folds
The_eDude folds
Hero raises [$12 USD]
As I have written before, these 3x raises are fine, provided you make enough correct fold and call decisions when opponent represents a flopped set. You are, in a sense, deliberately creating a difficult decision for yourself on the grounds that you make the right decision more often than you make a wrong one. This is just an extension of not raising all in preflop with Aces. You raise less, even though it might give you a tough decision on later streets, because you know that your profit margin is greater through raising a smaller amount.
Malek055 folds
Sharky_666 folds
Calling Station calls [$12 USD]
I didn't have any stats on this guy, which makes some of my later plays less than clever. I've defaulted the guy to a standard $400 weekend player, so I give him a range of any pair up to TT (with KK to JJ a possibility), any suited connector, "double gappers" (suited) from 86 upwards (perhaps 75s as well), and any suited royal flush draw, with the possible exception of KT
Mayonnaise32 folds
Villain folds
** Dealing Flop ** [ A♠, A♡;, 5◊; ]
Hero bets [$14 USD]
A standard CB from me these days is half the pot. Once again, the aim is to make more correct decisions on later streets than wrong ones, rather than to put in a bigger bet "to find out where you stand".
Calling Station calls [$14 USD]
Against most players online at $50 BI and up, this is a pair of Aces with a "not sure" kicker. Given my previous range assessment, I'm now putting the guy on ATs, AJs or AQs, possibly a slow-played set of fives. Stupidly, I'm allowing my "default" range assumption to act as if it's an "experienced" range assumption. This really is a bad mistake, and the bet on the turn is the biggest error.
** Dealing Turn ** [ 9♠ ]
One of my reasons for making a mistake here is that I had effectively given up on the hand on the flop once I was called. But now I've hit my two-outer and I know that I am a very big favourite. Opponent either has one out (if he has a set of fives) or three (if he has AT, AJ, AQ). Normally I would bet the pot here (say, with AK down to ATs), but now I decide to get sneaky. I think that another half-pot bet could well look like an attempt to get to a cheap showdown, thus eliciting a raise from AQ as well as from 55. Erroneously, this actually gives opponent implied odds to a three-outer.
Hero bets [$26 USD]
Calling Station calls [$26 USD]
** Dealing River ** [ 6♣; ]
And this is where I hang myself. I've made two big mistakes in this hand, which lead to the "big" mistake here. By that I mean that, if I hadn't made my earlier mistakes, there is nothing wrong with my action on the river. People look at the hand and see the error being the river play. In fact the seeds of the error (the real causes) were made earlier in the hand. My first mistake was to "give up" on the hand on the flop after I was called, rather than staying focused on the hand in case I hit my two-outer. This is the reverse error to thinking that you have a monster certain winner (say, AK on an AA5 board against a rock), only to be reraised with a massive all-in. Because you have headed down the "how can I maximise my winnings" route, you insta-call and, of course, you see 55). In this case, my "loser" becomes a "winner", but my lack of preparedness leads to a mis-sizing of my bet.
Hero bets [$52 USD]
Calling Station raises [$104 USD]
I'm still stuck in my assumption of 55 or AQ to AJ, with perhaps a misplayed AK
Hero is all-In [$308 USD]
in which case, I obviously shove (opponent has about $167 behind, so this is not as big an overbet as it looks.
Calling Station is all-In [$167.20 USD]
Calling Station cannot believe his luck.
Calling Station shows [ 6◊;, A◊; ]a full house, Aces full of Sixes.
Hero shows [ 9♣;, 9♡; ]a full house, Nines full of Aces.
Calling Station wins $648.90 USD from the main pot with a full house, Aces full of Sixes.
Now, if I bet the pot on the turn, Calling Station is probably going to fold (he wouldn't fold in a live game, but flat-calling the turn with anything less than AQ is just horrible. And flat-calling with AQ isn't very good). But what he is going to do is irrelevant. In fact, I want him to call, because he is not getting implied odds. A fold with A6 would be correct, while a call would be wrong. If he calls and stacks me off on the river, then so be it.
***LATER*** As Mr Young has pointed out, the last Ace and the fives are also "outs" for opponent, which makes my play even worse. However, as he also noted, these are not "hidden outs", and so the cost to me is not so great. Indeed, opponent calling for these outs, is only marginally plus EV. Doesn't affect the fact that I should bet significantly more on the turn.******
++++++++++++
I've slipped out of the manic phase and am heading into a bit of a depression. It was Jan's birthday yesterday, and I have never coped well with exclusion or rejection. This is all my problem. I am not the centre of the universe and I have to learn to cope with external realities over which I have no control. I'm certainly a great deal better at this now than I was a decade ago. But it still engenders a certain sadness and regret. So it goes.
But I also noticed less of a keenness to "get it in" while at the poker tables. If that leads me to playing a little bit too weak-tight at the $400 level (although the two hands above from last night would seem to appear that I'm perfectly happy to punt!) then I should drop back to $$200 and $100 (the levels at which I play during the week anyway).
I wrote just over a week or so ago thhat I had allocated three grand to "take a shot" at the higher levels. What I failed to point out at the time (and which I have not seen referenced elsewhere) is that there seems to be an implicit assumption that you will either spin it up or lose it.
But what about the (more likely?) outcome of neither winning nor losing? Suppose I play for a month and I'm where I started? If your expected win at a lower level is a couple of grand, then surely you have "lost" $2,000? Or suppose I play for three months and I have won no more than I would have expected to win at a lower level, but with higher volatility?
I don't know what the answer to that poser is. On the one hand, you could say that you should stay at the higher level, because you will eventually "master" that level and win correspondingly more. On the other hand, you could say: "Fuck this 'eventually'. Look at my win rate, volatility and blood pressure now. My ears are bleeding".
Let's face it, standard deviation at $400 BI is probably $600 every hundred hands, which is likely to come in at about $700+ an hour. That means that every one hour in a hundred you could be looking at a $2K+ loss. Am I ready to cope with that with equanimity (i.e., in a manner that will not affect my playing style)? Only, I suspect, when I am in a manic phase.
At $200, the standard deviation shrinks dramatically, because it's more of a nut-fest. Maybe $220 to $250 every hundred hands and $260 to $280 an hour. That gives you a 1-in-100 hourly loss of no more than $800, which is quite bearable.
______________
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