A quiet time

To the Association of Run-Off Companies annual shindig after I have finished the e-mail today. Run-off is a wonderful thing. Companies stop writing new business, but have to carry on paying off on old business. Some companies have been in run-off since the early 1980s and are still paying. Life run-offs are even weirder, because, even though they are no longer writing new business, premiums continue to come in on policies taken out in earlier years. My own Sun Life of Canada endowment is in run-off, but they will be gettin £100 a month from me for another seven years. There's a big consolidation in that field at the moment, mainly because owning a life operation in run-off eats up your capital requirements like Paradise seems to eat up system resources on your computer. Similarly, operations with cash to spend like to buy them because they reckon that they can make more out of the money being brought in (usually by sacking people and reducing costs rather than investing more astutely). On the downside, working out the real value of such operations is an actuarial nightmare that can go up and down by many millions just by shifting mortality assumptions a couple of weeks in either direction.

WH Smith have obviously had the bean counters at work. Remember when books were piled high in the window to attract you to buy them? Well, Smith's accountants clearly realized that this was a waste of capital, so they have instead put cardboard mock-ups of piles of books in their front windows. Just like those fake bookcases that you used to see in faux ancient pubs. The net effect is that it looks like shit (aesthetics not being an important factor for accountants). WH Smith is clearly a company that has utterly lost it, and I see no way back.

Listened to the Kaiser Chiefs' album Employment on the way to work (God bless the Rio Karma). Sort of Franz Ferdinand part two, was my initial impression (both of whom are clearly now part of the XTC/Gang of Four/Blur-influenced BritPop 2). However, some cracking tracks appeared later on that were more the band's own distinctive voice. Quite possibly a grower.

Poker was relatively quiet last night. Picked up $26 in a $3-$6 kill game on Ultimate, where I am working off my $200 first-deposit bonus. Then a couple of quid on Betfair. Oh, and I played some PLO on Ultimate for an hour, when virtually nothing happened. The most significant event was a fold.

I had AC TC TD 4H in MP1, and I followed a single limper. Three more limped behind me. I'm not a great fan of this hand, to be honest. I can sense trouble already.

Sure enough, the flop came QS TS 3D. It's checked to me and I have two choices I think - either to bet a rather small pot or to check and see what happens. I decide to check. The player behind me bets the pot. All others fold.

Ostensibly this is not dissimilar to the situation when I had three fours, but a whole load of other factors seem to me to be in play. Either this guy has three queens (and the rapidity with which the other players folded made me feel that he might be this kind of player!) or he has a draw -- maybe a monster draw. I chucked my trip 10s away. I think there are arguments for folding, raising or calling, but my view was that if I was winning I might still only be a 60-40 favourite, whereas if I was losing I was a massive dog with one out.

I suspect that my limp pre-flop was wrong in that this kind of hand is one to raise pre-flop. If I do this I can bet a more decent-sized pot post flop and have a much better idea of what is going on. As it is, I've (kind of) hit a flop, but I still have to walk away.

Still, for a hand that cost me 50¢, at least I got some thinking value out of it.