Flat out

Well, I appear to have let the flat to the first viewers, which probably indicates that I underpriced by £50 a month. However, they want to move in next Thursday - a week earlier than even my most optimistic estimate, so I've won about £200 of it back straight away. Any extra week that it was vacant cost the equivalent of four months in rent to make it up. Once you lose a month through pricing it slightly too high, you are worse off for the year, even if you let at the higher price.

The tenants only want a bed and a wardrobe; the wonders of the Internet and the telephone meant that I ordered a whole bunch of stuff for a ridiculously small sum in the grand scheme of things, and it will be delivered on Saturday. I am efficient.

Er, apart from the vacuum cleaner thing, of course, where the myriad of conflicting information that I have been receiving is fairly frightening. I think that it has to be a trip to Comet to see what they have available.

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"Expected" win/loss each night now seems to vacillate around the $100 region, with a few small wins/losses and a few large ones. Curiously, however, the swings over the past 3,000 hands have been very minor, with any bad night almost always being counterbalanced by a good one the night after. After a very good run up to 8,000 hands, I've now played 3,000 hands of $200 buy-in without a swing of more than one buy-in -- which is unusual indeed. Just lots of sessions where I walk away half a buy in up or half a buy in down.

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Ambac announced a rights issue yesterday. Everyone (apart from us, of course -- see my post earlier in the week) thought that Ambac would be borrowing from banks. The rights issue actually caught the market on the hop.

But, will it work? Ambac basically admitted that it hadn't written any new business this year. This is a bit like Northern Rock's position. It's no use saying that your existing book is fine if you aren't writing any new business going forward. And an awful lot of people are now asking themselves "are the bond insurers worth the money, if we don't know that they will be able to step up to the plate if we need them?"

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MBNA Europe gets my hate mail of the week, for taking a credit card payment twice, despite my specific instructions to cancel one of them (a cheque)and a verbal assurance that this would happen. So, they then cashed the cheque and took the debit card payment.

You can guess what card was used for the furniture..... If it weren't for the fact that me using that card costs them money, I'd take my business elsewhere...

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Here's another "pricing" situation that I had a little think about on the train home yesterday.

$1/$2 blinds.

Hero (BB) $200 8d 7d
Villain (CO) $200

All pass to Villain who raises to $8 Villain is something like 13%/5%
Hero calls.

$16 in pot

Flop Ks 8h 5d

Hero bets $12
Villain raises to $24
Hero calls

$62 in pot. Hero has $168. Villain has $168.

Turn 8s, giving hero trip eights, putting two spades on board.

I'd put villain on AK or KQ a good 70% of the time here. The other 30% consists of random stuff like 76, QQ, a bluff raise on flop when completely missed and probably something that I hadn't thought of.

Hero bets how much?

BTW, I can see arguments for other lines with the hand preflop and on the flop. If you want an "alternative" history, try this one:

All the same to the flop. Then:

Hero checks
Villain bets $9
Hero raises to $25
Villain calls.

Same turn card. There is now $64 in the pot. Hero bets how much?


And, a horrible scenario that I wouldn't adopt in real life.

Hero checks.
Villain bets $9
Hero calls:

Same turn card. $33 in pot. $184 behind.

Hero bets how much? Or does he check?

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