Old times

[peterbirks]

Saturday night from 10pm onwards is definitely the best time to be playing at the moment on the "US players barred" sites. I played for far too long last night because there were players present whom I thought had gone the way of the dodo. After four hours I ended up averaging $25 an hour from two-tabling. Irritatingly this consisted of three separate sessions -- the first was a "tear" that copped about $150. The secopnd was a "going nowhere" that won about $30, and the third was a nightmare that saw $80 slip away. When you wake up the following morning you just see the net plus sign and are quite content, but at the time, it's a bit irritating.

Here's the kind of hand that was happening to me when I was on my roll:


Seat 1: Fernandao ($242.75 in chips)
Seat 2: Peter1407 ($78.50 in chips)
Seat 3: Hero ($262.00 in chips)
Seat 4: SkiBoss ($62.12 in chips) DEALER
Seat 5: gasmankev ($193.00 in chips)
Seat 6: drifter9681 ($97.50 in chips)
Seat 7: Complete Fish ($36.21 in chips)
Seat 8: kingprof ($60.32 in chips)
Seat 9: AS970 ($117.50 in chips)
Seat 10: agf1967 ($135.21 in chips)
gasmankev: Post SB $1.00
drifter9681: Post BB $2.00

Dealt to Hero [A♣ K♣]
Complete Fish: Call $2.00
kingprof: Call $2.00
agf1967: Call $2.00
Peter1407: Call $2.00
Hero: Raise $4.00
drifter9681: Call $2.00
Complete Fish: Call $2.00
kingprof: Call $2.00
agf1967: Call $2.00
Peter1407: Call $2.00



*** FLOP *** [8♡ A♡ 6♠]

drifter9681: Check
Complete Fish: Check
kingprof: Bet $2.00
Hero: Raise $4.00
Complete Fish: Call $4.00
kingprof: Call $2.00

*** TURN *** [3◊]

Complete Fish: Check
kingprof: Check
Hero: Bet $4.00
Complete Fish: Call $4.00
kingprof: Call $4.00

*** RIVER *** [3♠]

Complete Fish: Check
kingprof: Fold
Hero: Bet $4.00
Complete Fish: Fold

*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot $51.00 Rake $2.00
Hero: wins $51.00


Absolutely nothing of interest there at all, apart from the fact that I won, and that hands like that just don't happen any more. In fact, those three hours or so reminded me how easy the game can be (subject to the inevitable variance) and why so many, to be frank, downright poor players who could do no more than play by what is taught in Miller's SSHE (but without really understanding why), could be decent-sized winners.

One thing good has come from the fact that I have tended to play in tougher games for the levels I choose, and from the recent imnprovement in the average standard; when I sit down in games like this, I realize how far I have come.


Here was another hand. I got lucky here, although none of my plays was negative EV. I was quite pleased by the call on the river, which (as expected), netted $8 rather than the probable $4 that I would have obtained if I had raised. In addition, it protects against the unlikely event of the original bettor having a better full house.



Seat 1: Fernandao ($206.00 in chips)
Seat 2: beatingheartbaby ($55.00 in chips)
Seat 3: Hero ($204.00 in chips)
Seat 4: SkiBoss ($67.12 in chips) DEALER
Seat 5: gasmankev ($196.00 in chips)
Seat 6: drifter9681 ($103.50 in chips)
Seat 7: Complete Fish ($64.21 in chips)
Seat 8: kingprof ($112.57 in chips)
Seat 9: AS970 ($124.50 in chips)
Seat 10: agf1967 ($163.71 in chips)
gasmankev: Post SB $1.00
drifter9681: Post BB $2.00
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Fernandao [A♣ 2♣]
Dealt to kingprof [10s Q♣]
Dealt to Hero [6♠ 6◊]
Dealt to drifter9681 [3♣ 9♣]

Complete Fish: Call $2.00
kingprof: Call $2.00
AS970: Call $2.00
agf1967: Call $2.00
Fernandao: Call $2.00
Hero: Raise $4.00
drifter9681: Call $2.00
Complete Fish: Call $2.00
kingprof: Call $2.00
AS970: Call $2.00
agf1967: Call $2.00
Fernandao: Call $2.00
*
** FLOP *** [J♣ 10♣c 6♣]

drifter9681: Bet $2.00
kingprof: Raise $4.00
Fernandao: Call $4.00
Hero: Call $4.00
drifter9681: Call $2.00

*** TURN *** [2♡]

Fernandao: Bet $4.00
Hero: Call $4.00
drifter9681: Call $4.00
kingprof: Raise $8.00
Fernandao: Call $4.00
Hero: Call $4.00
drifter9681: Call $4.00

*** RIVER *** [J♡]

Fernandao: Bet $4.00
Hero: Call $4.00
drifter9681: Call $4.00
kingprof: Call $4.00

*** SUMMARY ***

Total pot $90.00 Rake $3.00
Hero: wins $90.00




I'm off to see the youngster late this afternoon for a bite to eat and to see the recording of a couple of the latest National Theatre of Brent offering.

Comments

[jiggery-pokery.livejournal.com]

Unrelatedly, you've probably seen it, but some muppets got waaaaaaaaaaaaaay into trouble on Betfair (http://www.thehendonmob.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=13133) not really fully understanding what they're doing and have been trying to welch on their losses. Quite a tale.

[peterbirks.livejournal.com]

No, I hadn't seen this, and the original thread referred to on the Hendon Mob forum has now been deleted, but it's clear where the punters went wrong.

Clearly they realized that they were in the shit and some of them withdrew any cash that they had. In the short term that might seem like a bright move but in the long term it's not very clever.

Betfair, it should be noted, insists that it is a bookmaker. Indeed, when they started out I spoke to their head of marketing (this would be about 2002 or thereabouts? Maybe 2001. I was still doing online finance stuff at the time) and he said "we are the purest kind of bookmaker. To this I replied "bollocks, you are a broker, pure and simple. You are just pretending you are a bookmaker so that your customers don't get classed as bookmakers".

However, BF is now somewhat hoist on its own petard, because it can't chase the pseudo arbitrageurs.

It's easy to make this kind of mistake in complex markets, by the way (this one related to goalscorers in the Arsenal vs Chelsea game on Sunday, with the fools not realizing that you had to refund the stake on a substitute if the first goal was scored before a substitute took the field). I did something similar in a "top three" market. I thought that I had a 4% overlay, whereas in fact it was a 3% underlay. But that only cost me a fiver.

I particularly admired one guy's summary of where these fools went wrong. He said something along the lines of "You thought that you were taking £1 bets on heads or tails, and that if it came up either, you only paid out £1.50. In fact what happened was that you were taking bets on heads, tails and diamonds, paying out £2.50. But, it being a coin, diamonds were a non-runner, and you have to refund the stake on that. So you have taken £3 in, have refunded £1 as a non-runner, and now are paying out £2.50 on the rest. Whoops."

It's nice to know that there are donkeys like this out there who think they understand betting. It makes me more confident that winning at poker is sustainable.

PJ

Betfair

[(Anonymous)]

Just had a quick look at this and got so engrossed that I read the whole thing. The problem wasn't substitutes, it was the fact that Wenger has been using what is effectively a second team through the Carling Cup. Having got to the final, no one was sure whether he would stick with "the kids" that had got them there, or revert to the first team. Given this uncertainty, Betfair listed the entire Arsenal squad, thereby ensuring that around half of the players listed wouldn't ever get on the pitch and so had a fairly low chance of being the first scorer. As for the rest, "No one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public" P.T.Barnum (nearly). But if I was ever tempted to start online betting...... John W

Re: Betfair

[(Anonymous)]

Wasn't it HL Mencken, not Barnum, who said that?

No one ever went broke

[(Anonymous)]

Just checked and you are right, it was Mencken. The Barnum quote is "No one ever went broke underestimating the taste of the American public". Hence the (nearly). Obviously I wasn't as original as I'd hoped in altering the one word, and Mencken got there 80 years or so earlier. So it goes. John W

Re: Betfair

[(Anonymous)]

"No one ever got rich imagining weird creatures menacing the American public" HP Lovecraft.



John H.

[andy-ward-uk.livejournal.com]

Pulling out the money they had on the site may have been "bright" but it just shows that these people are living in a complete moral vacuum. It's welshing, pure and simple. And the guy who runs this forum was openly advising people to do it !

Andy.

[peterbirks.livejournal.com]

Indeed, Andy. I'm reminded of a Scandinavian's post here some months ago on the matter of all-in abuse on Boss Media, where the only matter that seemed to be of relevance was the poker site's attitude to deliberate all-ins. "Moral vacuum" is an excellent phrase and it sums up a whole raft of poker players and games players (and life players) who not only refuse to see the moral and ethical angle (and the problems that come with it) when it comes to a human's action, but are actually almost incapable of seeing it.

PJ

[(Anonymous)]

Is that second hand right? Surely Fernando would raise on the flop and turn with the nuts? Or am I being hopelessly ABC for the complex world of online $2/$4?

matt

[peterbirks.livejournal.com]

It's an accurate transcription of the hand history, Matt; I just ran it through my conversion macro; that's all.

As you say, the play of the entire hand is puzzling, with kingprof's aggression being optimistic at the very least. The only guy who played it even half-decently was the big blind.

I see a few , very few, seriously passive players who don't play the nuts that aggressively, because they are frightened that the board will pair and that they will lose to a full house. In other words, no hand is raisable until it is the nuts on the river.

There are fewer and fewer of these players around, but the curious thing about them is, as here, that if the board DOES pair, they then convince themselves that their flush is probably winning anyway.

PJ