Rate Tarts

I see that the initiator of the "free balance transfer" farce — Egg — has introduced a 2% balance transfer fee "to discourage rate tarts". The disingenuousness of this is mind-boggling. I really would like to be at a press conference one day with these wankers. "Er, so you think that people should voluntarily pay more than they need to, and that looking around for a better price is morally wrong, do you?" "Well, no, but..." so why the pejorative term "rate tarts"?.

But the real disgrace is that it was the credit card companies that offered it in the first place, presumably thinking that customer inertia, that system that they have exploited for so many decades, would keep the customers once they started charging 19.6% interest. They were then SURPRISED that the customers promptly moved to SOME OTHER CREDIT CARD that was offering zero per cent interest. So, you have a choice, pay zero per cent, or pay 19.6%. "I'll take the zero per cent please, Bob". "Ah, well I'm afraid that makes you a rate tart". "Oh dear Bob, is that bad?"

This moral high horse is from companies that routinely shift maturing bonds into accounts that pay interest rates of 0.1%, companies that will not allow people with power of attorney over their parents' finances to park the money in anything other than the lowest interest-rate-paying account possible. It's from companies that want us to borrow more and more money and will not be happy until 50% of our expenditure is taken up in interest payments. Hell, it worked for the third world.

Poker has cleverly appropriated the phrase "bonus whore" as a compliment. I proudly proclaim myself to be an "airline whore" when people ask me which airline I use to fly to the US. Perhaps we should introduce "www.rate-tart.com", and embrace the intended insult.


BTW, for those wishing to piss of some bank people, I recommend walking into any NatWest branch and asking "is this the Royal Bank of Scotland?"

Elections

You may have not noticed, but there will be a General Election tomorrow. I will be having a little get-together at my place in the evening. Let me know if you are interested in coming.

Pete

Further mental travails of a player in the middle of a bad run

One could, of course, call it Sodd's Law, but it seems inevitable that bad runs strike when you move up in stakes.

Another $400 lost this evening, making me about $600 down since Sunday. It's hard to be "happy" about losing $400, no matter how inconsequential it is in the grand scheme of things. And I'm not. I'm pissed off. But at least this evening I can console myself that, even if I am not good enough, I am not THAT bad.

What do I do with these hands. Should I fold them, or am I right to stay to the end, even though I think that I am losing?

Hand A: I get JT of diamonds in seat 7. Two limpers before me. I limp. Button raises, BB calls and two original limpers call. Flop comes 7D 8D 9S, giving me flopped straight and four-card straight-flush draw. Checked round to the button who obligingly bets. Two callers. I raise. All three call.

Turn brings six of diamonds. Checked to me. I bet, button calls, one of the original limpers raises. Do I call? Already a $130-odd pot. I call with a heavy heart. River is ten of spades. Limper bets, I call. He shows King-three of diamonds for a higher flush.


Hand B: I get KK in seat four. I raise and only the BB calls. Flop comes AQ4 rainbow. Check to me. I bet, BB calls. Turn is another Queen. Check to me. Do I bet? I decide not to. I think that if I am winning, I am unlikely to be giving much away, while if I am losing, I am saving a bet and I might elucidate a bluff. Turn is garbage. BB bets. I call. He shows QT off.

Hand C: QQ in late. All folded to me. I raise. Am called in BB. Flop is J73 two spades. Check to me, I bet. Turn is another Jack. Check to me. Same scenario as before, except that he might be on a flush draw. So I bet. He calls. River is another Seven. He bets. I call. He shows 97 of spades for a small full house.

Hand D: KQs in late. Two limpers. I raise. Call from BB and the two limpers. Flop is KQ2, two spades. Check to me, I bet, call from BB, one call one fold from limpers. Turn is small diamond. Check to me, I bet. Two callers. River is a spade. Bet from BB. I call. He shows A7 of spades for the flush.


All of them were reasonably-sized pots and I lost the lot. In 220 hands I VPIP'd 19% of the time and managed to win a hand 20% of the time that I saw a flop. My win% at showdown was 30%. Awful. And that doesn't even mention the raising hands I had like AK where the flop promptly came Jxx all the same suit and, yes, not mine.

I walked away from battles, resisting the temptation to think that I was being robbed. But this meant that I folded a hell of a lot of hands on the turn. Was I being raise-bluffed a la Simon Galloway? Quite possibly, but since I couldn't hit a flop to save my life, there was no way I could find out. I tried a reraise once (with middle pair and just one overcard) but was promptly reraised back. Once again, I walked away.

In a sense I have to wonder whether in this case I know myself better than others do. I might be good enough to win at this level, but I don't know that I am mentally strong enough.

On the other hand, just because following others' advice has made me miserable, that does not make the advice wrong. Although a $600 loss in three days is in excess of anything I have lost previously, I have been here before. Except that it was $2-$4 and the loss was a then unparalleled $200.

As Aksu said, if I can't learn to treat $1000 as an unimportant amount, then I will never be able to win at a level above $2-$4. And, in the grand scheme of things, a grand is an unimportant amount.

There have definitely been situations where I have been laying down hands on the turn that I have a nagging feeling I should be reraising with. After years of experience at a lower level, you get to know what is the right or wrong move in a given situation, but at a higher level, that might not be the right move. For once it might be nice to have an experienced player at this level looking over my shoulder. Should I just follow the lower-level strategy and see what happens, or should I try to change my style straight away? Because I can see that JUST playing as I played at the lower level will not work. You get reraised more often, and fewer players are willing to lie down and die when you bash a bet at them on the flop. Therefore you need some new strategies. This goes beyond a check-raise bluff on the turn. In a general sense, you need to make more marginal judgements of hands.

The problem with this is that it can take a long time before you know whether your marginal judgements are right, too conservative, or too reckless. I have to keep trying. But if the loss reaches $1500, I really don't know that I will have the confidence to go on.

Part of this is that I am racked with self-doubt. It permeates my very bones. This is not a good character trait for a poker player. Indeed, if I had to compare myself with any sportsman, it would be with Geff Boycott. I have no great natural talent for the game of poker, but I am willing to work hard at it. And I have worked hard at it. But it makes things difficult when situations like this arise.

And knowing that I've been getting bad breaks doesn't stop me cursing the screen (but at least I haven't been cursing myself this evening, which is a step forward) when I miss yet another flop. I mean, is to TOO much to ask to be lucky when you move up in stakes? Just the once?

Have crawled back to $330 down since I started typing this.