More Signs and signifiers

The steps down from Oxford St to Ramilles Place are blocked off at the moment because some company wants to create some swish new offices just in time for the collapse in the commercial property market. This means that I have to negotiate a narrow street that houses the Palladium stage door, the back of the Hotel Kempinski, and various other anonymous rear entrances. The anonymity of the street is unleavened by the collection of notices and invocations. These are now so ubiquitous that we are no longer aware of them. But I counted more than 20 in a very short walk. There's the old staples of NO PARKING, GARAGE IN CONSTANT USE and DO NOT CHAIN BICYCLES TO THESE RAILINGS, THEY WILL BE REMOVED. But there was also a direction (from a picture of Uncle Sam, no less), that Hotel Kempinski staff should not smoke cigarettes in one particular spot "because the extractor system draws air in to cool the rooms from here and customers have complained about the smell of smoke". Marvellous, you can't smoke inside, so you go outside, and the system then works to draw the smoke directly to non-smokers' rooms. At least with smoking rooms, you knew where you were. Another out-of-the-ordinary sign is the one at the Palladium, stating that "on the advice of the West End Police, autographs will not be signed here before or after the performance". You don't see that one at the entrance to Lewisham Station.

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Poker concepts I was playing with in my head last night. After you have raised pre-flop and got precisely one caller behind, always checking a dry board with one paint card. Then you always check-raise TPTK or an overpair, and 30% of the time you check-raise two overcards (check-folding the remainder). If stacks are very deep and opponent then three-bet shoves, you fold all bar AA (and even fold that on the rare occasions that you know opponent would only play the way he has with a set). I'd try to avoid the check-raises to be of an amount that would leave me a 2-to-1 decision. Either get most of the money in first or get a much smaller proportion. If player checks behind, put in bet on the turn no matter what comes up. Haven't tried it yet, but it isn't being played by anyone else at my levels, so it should confuse the ABC players who, for a short time at least, seem to be confused by any failure to CB (OMIGOD HE MUST HAVE TOP SET!!!!). The style would work quite well in afternoon games, because most callers behind are playing pairs. It's probably not so good a system in late-night games with looser players, where a higher proportion of your betting is for value.

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I think that the next Saturday night audition programme should be "Bend It Like Beckham", where Favio Capelli takes on the Andrew Lloyd Webber role, and potential England number 7s undergo a series of set pieces....

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