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[personal profile] peterbirks
I three-tabled at 3-6 on Party last night and this morning. If we were results-oriented, we might call last night "a bit of a disaster". But, we aren't results-oriented, are we? And, from an "am I in control" point of view, it felt fairly good.

This morning was better, from one very significant standpoint. That being that, at the moment, I have no idea how much I won or lost. Saturday mornings always used to be difficult to keep track of your net position, because games frequently folded and, if a game got bad, you had to leave it to find another loose game that you knew was out there. So this morning, I didn't bother. I can look at my balance at the end and compare it to the balance on my spreadsheet to tell how much I won or lost over the session.



Just checked, I was $71 to the good, plus 255 hands in just shy of 90 minutes. As I said at the start of the year, I think that moving up in tables played simultaneously is a more important target for me than moving up in levels. I'm now getting comfortable with three, which is pleasing indeed.

I'm afraid I was guilty of educating a player this morning. Actually, this guy is almost certainly a winner at 3-6, so, providing I remember that I have "educated" him, I can move up to the next level of thought when I come across him again.

It was passed round to the SB and he raised my BB. I had Ten-Two off, which is clearly either an automatic call or a slightly dodgy raise ( :-) ).

I called. Flop came T53 rainbow, giving me top pair. He bets. I call. Turn is an 8. He bets, I raise, he calls. River is a King completing a potential flush. He checks, I check, he shows AJ off and I win. I should probably bet for value on the river by thwe way. Sorry about that wimpishness.

"LOL. Is there anything you would fold there?" he asked.

"Probably not. See Matros on this precise point", I replied.

"Uh, OK".

Well, that shut him up. But perhaps a better line would have been "No, I'm just a mad gambling boy!" which is what I usually say when an apparently loose play is unveiled.

+++++

Every so often these past few months we have seen posts on the poker forums from twenty-somethings in pathetic little "production companies" asking for volunteers for "an exciting new TV venture". The people working for these companies are on a par with the investigative journalists at the News of the World, genuinely the scum of the earth, beneath marketing and sales. Members of the public are put before the cameras, expecting some kind of sympathetic explanation of their situation, and when it gets to air, they see an absolute travesty. Luckily the more intelligent members of the general public are getting savvy about this, and casually tell these twenty-somethings from "Talktack TV" or wherever to go fuck themselves.

Unless, of course, you are George Galloway, who said this morning that Endemol had got him onto Celebrity Big Brother by promising him a soapbox for his views on Iraq. Apparently he was surprised to learn that whenever he went off on one about the invasion of Iraq, his views were covered with birdsong.

Well, of course the twenty-something from Endemol Productions promised him that. That's what these scumbags do to get you to go on TV. And, if Galloway had been as streetwise as Tony Benn, the entire conversation would be on tape (Benn records all conversations with journalists, on or off the record). But clearly Galloway isn't as streetwise as he likes to think.

He said yesterday that he had been called a lot of things in his life, but never had he been accused of being naive.

Well, here you go, George. You are naive, a mug, you got one pulled over on you, you fell for it. Please play in my home game, if I ever have one again.

++++

Speaking of which, Jo Haslam was muttering about how there was a serious dearth of home games these days. A pity. The problem is, for every person who you want to see, such as Alex, Jo, Cameron, Martin, The Elk, Jennifer and John, Eugene and Mel, Hames Davey, James The Buck, Narinder and many others, there are an equal number of tossbags who find out about it and get themselves invited. Hence the reluctance to run home games and their short shelf-life. My normal standards here are that anyone who lives in a bedsit and has done for many years is likely to be a bad bet. Couples, the divorced, and people not on shifts are usually good bets. Media people tend to be okay. Night shift security workers, not so hot.

Date: 2006-01-29 06:21 am (UTC)
From: (Anonymous)
"The people working for these companies are on a par with the investigative journalists at the News of the World, genuinely the scum of the earth, beneath marketing and sales."

Can't quite agree with you there, Peter. I have a much higher opinion of the investigative journalists of the NoWT than the others in that list. They do actually find things out. They do some actual work, unlike the analysts, commentators and press-release re-writers in journalism who wait until someone else has done some work and then do the easy bit.

Personally I wish that they would pick bigger targets. I don't give a damn about Sven the England manager. But imagine if they had nailed some thugs admitting to the murder of Stephen Lawrence... Get the drift?

DY

News of the World

Date: 2006-01-29 09:52 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] peterbirks.livejournal.com
Well, to extend the journalistic analogy, up to a point, Lord Copper.

Charlotte from Emphysematic Productions, or Sarah from marketing, or James from "Hot! News!" PR at least kind of have the excuse that they are brainless fuckwits. I have no argument with the talent of the investigative journalists at the NoW. My problem is the uses to which those talents are put and the hypocrisy used to justify the (mis)use of those talents.

Nearly all of the NoW exposés serve no public interest purpose whatsoever (a majority, I would contend, probably work against the public interest in the long term) and yet this is always the justification wheeled out. Bollocks. The aim is to sell more papers. If they would admit that, then I wouldn't have such a low opinion of them.

Where there is genuine "public interest" at stake (say, the possible corruption in buying departments in local authorities) the NoW does bugger all, because the subjects of the investigation would not be "stars".

PJ

Re: News of the World

Date: 2006-01-29 11:29 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] andy-ward-uk.livejournal.com
I am becoming a terrible cynic but I believe newspapers have moved on from aiming to sell more papers ; many now have a primary aim of furthering the business interests of their owners.

Corporate tax evasion costs us an absolute fucking fortune. Many (about 40 according to one source which I can dig up if required) times more than individual benefit fraud. Where's the newspaper expose on that ? Do I have to explain why it's nowhere to be seen ?

Andy.

August 2023

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