Running With Your Eyes Closed

A slight problem that I have if I am losing on a $2-$4 table is that I get a little bit laggy. The metagame negative EV on this probability isn't that great -- sometimes you get lucky on that hand, and your play will certainly be remembered by the opponent in future, so you might get called down more than you otherwise would have in future hands when you have the business.

Take 98s in the small blind. Three people limp (this is why I don't tend to get this problem at levels above $2-$4!) so I complete. Even this might be a mistake. I seem to do my pieces with hands like this in the blinds and I suspect that it might be best for me to just walk away.

Flop comes K92 rainbow (King of your suit) and you check. Two other players check and the button bets.

Now, you have the stats there on the button on about 40 hands. They say 28%/4%. This guy is not a lag, he's not a stealer. In fact he's probably a typical marginal loser at $2-$4 who can only take money off loose-passive fishes -- and me when I'm in this kind of mood.

Everything is screaming that this guy has limped on the button with KQ (suited or not) or KJ, or maybe KTs.

So why on earth do I check-raise here? Darned if I know. It's a fair enough play at $15-$30, where if this kind of situation arose button could have just about any two cards. And it's a fair enough play if opponent's figures are 50%/30%, but apart from that, it's fucking insane.

Anyway. Opponent calls your raise. The turn brings something like a 3. You bet, he calls. River is an ace and you both check and he shows KQ.

How much is the negative EV on the play? Well, if you take the call pre-flop as a given (not necessarily correct, but it makes the numbers easier), then your fold on the flop has an EV of zero. Your check-raise might be winning one time in 10 and elicit a fold on the turn. That gets a gain of $11 or +$1.10. Nine times in 10 you will be losing. But about 22% of the time (is that the right number? -- I'm running this on the fly) you will suck out and win a $30 pot. That has an EV of +$6. Then the rest of the time your play has a loss of $10, for a loss of about $8 overall ($10 x 78%). In other words, it's only marginal minus EV of about $1, given the quality of your opponent. But a dollar is half a small blind. If you are going to check-raise in these situations with a middle pair, at least do it against the right kind of opponent.


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I've been watching the re-run of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy on BBC 4. Marvellous stuff. I have a couple of very flimsy connections to this production (from 1979). Geoffrey Burgon, who composed the music, taught me the trumpet at school. It must have been hell for a professional musician and composer to teach schoolkids a musical instrument, especially lazy fucks like me who couldn't be bothered to practise three hours a night, or indeed any hours a night. Burgon went on to compose Brideshead Revisited's music, something with which most people are far more familiar.

Secondly, the Islay Hotel, where Smiley holes up to investigate the Merlin affair, is in Victoria, and a few times you see George Sewell leaving the hotel, and there is a Mecca Bookmakers in the background. This is the Wilton Road Mecca, which I actually managed sometime in the 1980s (1985?). That was a very seedy part of Victoria, in the days when Pimlico was even seedier. And betting shops attract the detritus of the detritus. But Wilton Road used to get some interesting people in it. Ronald Lacey (well-known UK character actor) popped in every so often. He was probably an alcoholic by this time and he never seemed to have much dosh. Further up the road was Elizabeth Street shop (opposite the coach station, so I guess that it was the London equivalent of The Plaza in downtown LV) and that used to get Gerry Fitt and Milton Shulman in as (relative) regulars. Milton's daughter Alexandra probably wouldn't want to be reminded of that as she travels the New York cocktail circuit.

All of these people are dead now, of course, as is another character of the age - Sam White. He was the Paris correspondent of the Evening Standard and I interviewed him, in Paris, in 1979 (when they were making that TV series, as it happens). That was my one chance to summon up the courage to be asked to be introduced to Samuel Beckett, since I am sure Sam White was a friend of his and I believe that they often met in cafes. But, well, I didn't. Something which I have always regretted. As middle age approached, I cam to realize that you have to grasp chances like that and not let shyness get in the way.

Lucien Freud used to bet in the Duke Street shop, casually losing a few grand a day back in the 1980s. Brian Brown was a pool manager and one day Lucien had a particularly torrid time, so Brian had to telephone the area manager to come down to collect the vast wodges of cash squirrelled away in various parts of the shop. When the area manager arrived, one Bob Monte (and now you might understand some of my attitude to twat bag ex-Ladbrokes area manager David Carruthers and his time in jail), Bob asked Brian who the big punter was. Brian pointed out Lucien Freud.

"So, what does he do?" asked the area manager

"He's a painter" said Brian, despairing at the cultural ignorance of the area manager

"Blimey", said area manager, "you wouldn't think there would be that much money in decorating, would you?" Pause. "Still, it is Mayfair, I suppose."


Sigh.


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