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Mendacious phrases
Aug. 6th, 2007 11:42 am"It's just a bit of fun".
If anyone ever says that to you ever, about anything, you can be fairly sure that, whatever it is thay are describing, "a bit of fun" is just what it won't be.
Let's take a few examples that I have come across in the past few years
1) The cricket match.
Our company organised a six-a-side cricket day at the Oval, to which several client companies were invited to put up a team. Why not play? asked one of the advertising gurus on the floor. "After all, it's just a bit of fun".
Being wise to this phrase, I turned it down. The following Monday several members of the team walked in with injuries of varying degrees of seriousness, after it transpired that several of the opposition teams had virtual semi-professionals playing. Balls zipped by at 90mph, Balls were hit with horrific ferocity that meant anyone trying to catch them risked several broken fingers.
2) The game at a games convention.
Beware anyone you do not know (and quite a few of those you do know) trying to get you to sit down for a game (particularly a play-test) at a games convention.
"It'll only take about an hour. It's just a bit of fun".
This will turn out to be a three-hour mega-game which the inviter is desperate to win. Beware also the trick of throwing in "a variation" to a standard game. The proposer will have been practising at home with this variation for the previous three weeks, and wants to see if his strategies work. You are merely guinea-pigs.
3) The Fantasy League Game
Anything that involves "picking a team" and, worse, involves transfers, is never "a bit of fun", despite what the inviter tells you. He will spend at least eight hours a week studying the various available players, and many more hours in the week actually following the game (because he likes it). A great deal of time will be required for you to come anywhere but a hopeless last place.
4) The bullying of a teenager to suicide.
Whenever bullies are interviewed, their small brains can only cope with the line "it was only a bit of fun", mainly because the empathetic side of their nature is non-existent. Bullying gang members have two types of constituent. One is a sadist who knows exactly what pain the bullying of the gang causes. That, indeed, is what makes it "fun". The remainder are people of small brains who like to be a member of a "team" (their mentality doesn't spread to being able to make a decision on their own) and who don't realise the implications of what they are doing (because, as mentioned before, they have small brains).
Even when interviewed in adulthood, they seem too thick to understand the nature of what they did. "It was just a bit of fun. We couldn't believe it when she killed herself".
Like, sure, you could see how much fun the victim was having at the time, I guess.
So, if anyone ever wants me to do anything, stating that it is "just a bit of fun" won't cut the mustard. I'll run a mile.
+++++++++++
Yesterday morning saw some excitement at the tables. I sat down at a couple of $1-$2 games ($200 max buy-in), only to spot a player on my right with more than four times the maximum buy-in. It quickly became fairly plain that this guy was not particularly good, but he was being lucky and, more importantly, his opponents didn't see how to exploit him. The guy was seeing 80% of flops and had a marked talent on the river for spotting a bluff. However, if he bet the river, he had the goods.
Needless to say, this made for a lively game, and within an hour he had moved from $850 to $1450, once through calling a big reraise pre-flop with 66 against AA and, of course, winning. But he wasn't winning off me. Rather than go for a double-through (which was the strategy of most opponents) I was playing my stack rather than his (in the sense that it's only the smaller of two stacks that matter when you are head to head) and I was chipping away at him with value bets. After a couple of hours I was up to $330 ($130 up) and I followed my strict rule of quitting after two hours, no matter what.
Deciding to leave was helped that he was sitting only two to my left, so I wasn't in the ideal situation to take money from him. But what amazed me was not how bad this guy was (in fact, he wasn't the worst player in the universe, apart from his refusal to fold pre-flop) but the failure of his supposedly 'good' opponents to properly exploit him. Winning off this kind of player is not a matter of sitting there and waiting for Aces, or of trying to push him off a hand.
Meanwhile at the other table, a slightly less loose (and slightly more aggressive) guy was also doing well. I picked up AKs in MP2 and reraised a tightish player on my right to $25 . Loosey-goosey (sitting four to my left), raised all-in for $300. Original raiser folded and I had $90 behind (I'd been bleeding chips slowly), which made my call fairly easy. He flipped QQ and I failed to improve. Rebuy.
Fortunately I got nearly all of it back over a couple of hands, one of which same opponent carved horribly. From the small blind, defending my lumpyish preflop raise, he flopped an open ended straight-flush draw and top pair (8d 6d), (board 7d 5d 8c), and cold-called my continuation with AA (one diamond). He cold called the turn and then cold-called my value bet of $55 on the river.
I can't remember the other hand, but I recall another $50-ish value bet on the river with top pair/not-very-much that got called, but still won.
Anyhoo, one of the tables had a pot size average of $138, which is slightly above the norm for $1-$2 NL.
This might have been a reason for my standard deviation per hour at $1-$2 NL clicking in at $95 -- roughly on a par with $5-$10 limit. At 50ยข-$1 NL my standard deviation is $37 an hour.
I'd put the quality of play at the higher level ($200 buy-in) as on a par with $2-$4 limit about four or five years ago.
It's just a bit of fun, really.
If anyone ever says that to you ever, about anything, you can be fairly sure that, whatever it is thay are describing, "a bit of fun" is just what it won't be.
Let's take a few examples that I have come across in the past few years
1) The cricket match.
Our company organised a six-a-side cricket day at the Oval, to which several client companies were invited to put up a team. Why not play? asked one of the advertising gurus on the floor. "After all, it's just a bit of fun".
Being wise to this phrase, I turned it down. The following Monday several members of the team walked in with injuries of varying degrees of seriousness, after it transpired that several of the opposition teams had virtual semi-professionals playing. Balls zipped by at 90mph, Balls were hit with horrific ferocity that meant anyone trying to catch them risked several broken fingers.
2) The game at a games convention.
Beware anyone you do not know (and quite a few of those you do know) trying to get you to sit down for a game (particularly a play-test) at a games convention.
"It'll only take about an hour. It's just a bit of fun".
This will turn out to be a three-hour mega-game which the inviter is desperate to win. Beware also the trick of throwing in "a variation" to a standard game. The proposer will have been practising at home with this variation for the previous three weeks, and wants to see if his strategies work. You are merely guinea-pigs.
3) The Fantasy League Game
Anything that involves "picking a team" and, worse, involves transfers, is never "a bit of fun", despite what the inviter tells you. He will spend at least eight hours a week studying the various available players, and many more hours in the week actually following the game (because he likes it). A great deal of time will be required for you to come anywhere but a hopeless last place.
4) The bullying of a teenager to suicide.
Whenever bullies are interviewed, their small brains can only cope with the line "it was only a bit of fun", mainly because the empathetic side of their nature is non-existent. Bullying gang members have two types of constituent. One is a sadist who knows exactly what pain the bullying of the gang causes. That, indeed, is what makes it "fun". The remainder are people of small brains who like to be a member of a "team" (their mentality doesn't spread to being able to make a decision on their own) and who don't realise the implications of what they are doing (because, as mentioned before, they have small brains).
Even when interviewed in adulthood, they seem too thick to understand the nature of what they did. "It was just a bit of fun. We couldn't believe it when she killed herself".
Like, sure, you could see how much fun the victim was having at the time, I guess.
So, if anyone ever wants me to do anything, stating that it is "just a bit of fun" won't cut the mustard. I'll run a mile.
+++++++++++
Yesterday morning saw some excitement at the tables. I sat down at a couple of $1-$2 games ($200 max buy-in), only to spot a player on my right with more than four times the maximum buy-in. It quickly became fairly plain that this guy was not particularly good, but he was being lucky and, more importantly, his opponents didn't see how to exploit him. The guy was seeing 80% of flops and had a marked talent on the river for spotting a bluff. However, if he bet the river, he had the goods.
Needless to say, this made for a lively game, and within an hour he had moved from $850 to $1450, once through calling a big reraise pre-flop with 66 against AA and, of course, winning. But he wasn't winning off me. Rather than go for a double-through (which was the strategy of most opponents) I was playing my stack rather than his (in the sense that it's only the smaller of two stacks that matter when you are head to head) and I was chipping away at him with value bets. After a couple of hours I was up to $330 ($130 up) and I followed my strict rule of quitting after two hours, no matter what.
Deciding to leave was helped that he was sitting only two to my left, so I wasn't in the ideal situation to take money from him. But what amazed me was not how bad this guy was (in fact, he wasn't the worst player in the universe, apart from his refusal to fold pre-flop) but the failure of his supposedly 'good' opponents to properly exploit him. Winning off this kind of player is not a matter of sitting there and waiting for Aces, or of trying to push him off a hand.
Meanwhile at the other table, a slightly less loose (and slightly more aggressive) guy was also doing well. I picked up AKs in MP2 and reraised a tightish player on my right to $25 . Loosey-goosey (sitting four to my left), raised all-in for $300. Original raiser folded and I had $90 behind (I'd been bleeding chips slowly), which made my call fairly easy. He flipped QQ and I failed to improve. Rebuy.
Fortunately I got nearly all of it back over a couple of hands, one of which same opponent carved horribly. From the small blind, defending my lumpyish preflop raise, he flopped an open ended straight-flush draw and top pair (8d 6d), (board 7d 5d 8c), and cold-called my continuation with AA (one diamond). He cold called the turn and then cold-called my value bet of $55 on the river.
I can't remember the other hand, but I recall another $50-ish value bet on the river with top pair/not-very-much that got called, but still won.
Anyhoo, one of the tables had a pot size average of $138, which is slightly above the norm for $1-$2 NL.
This might have been a reason for my standard deviation per hour at $1-$2 NL clicking in at $95 -- roughly on a par with $5-$10 limit. At 50ยข-$1 NL my standard deviation is $37 an hour.
I'd put the quality of play at the higher level ($200 buy-in) as on a par with $2-$4 limit about four or five years ago.
It's just a bit of fun, really.
