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A win-win situation
Jan. 22nd, 2010 10:51 amNot often that a company comes out with an offer that makes sense, will be well-received by customers, and increases the company's profits, but the supermarkets' "Buy One, get One Free (Next Week)" is definitely one of them.
One of the maddening things about the old "B1G1F" promotions was that a single person (e.g., me) would never be able to eat the second item before it went off. With stuff that freezes (bacon, the 100% beef burgers, etc) it's not a problem, but with fresh fruit and veg, the offer was fairly useless.
So, Tesco and Sainsbury now offer the opportunity on some items (the lettuce offer at Tesco caught my eye) to buy the item and to receive a voucher at check-out that can be exchanged for the same item the following week.
Obv Tesco and Sainsburys' are talking about "reducing waste", but it also increases their profits, because the take-up on these offers will clearly be less than 100%. My guess is that it will be below 50%. That means that such a promotion "costs" Tesco far less. You could have twice as many B1G1L promotions as B1G1F promotions, for less cost.
But if it's food that would otherwise be thrown away, then that's fine by me. In effect, as the Butler would put it, you are using Tesco as your freezer for goods that you wouldn't be able to freeze anyway. All that you have to do is remember to go to collect it.
++++++++++++
It's been a wearying and hard-work month online. In a sense this is good; I am beginning to see what my limits are in terms of time, energy and focus. I've become comfortable with six-tabling (four now seems slow), so it's possible that I could progress to a "comfortable" eight-table scenario for 90 minutes a time. That would boost the hands per hour very nicely -- up to 500 or so. With the progressive nature of rakeback (each 'extra' hand earns you proportionately more in rakeback than the previous hand) that makes $10 a hundred at $1-$2 easier to achieve, provided I can maintain the same winrate at the tables as I am achieving six-tabling at the moment.
The maths on that are not hard -- I could be looking at an average $40 to $50 an hour before the end of the year if things go right. That won't be the average for the whole year, although $35 now looks within reach. And there's always the chance of a stinky run that pushes me back down to 50c-$1,
One begins to see why so many "good" players are 24-tabling at $1-$2 and $2-$4 full ring rather than three-tabling at $25-$50 short-handed. Even though they can beat both games, they probably earn more at the former (with considerably less volatility and mental effort) than they could at the latter. Even when six-tabling you head into a certain degree of auto-pilot, something you have to be careful about if you are playing the same opponents again and again.
There's clearly two streams of poker thought here (and I'm not talking about full-stacking vs short-stacking this time). The business-players talk about reducing beta, generating a higher RoE and RoI, sustainability, and basically loads of business model stuff, while many of the old-schoolers talk about gambling and the thrill.
In simple terms, they can be split into "risk-avoiders" and "thrill-seekers".
The latter just can't see the point of the former ("you might as well get a job", they say) while the former look on the "thrill-seekers" as gambling degenerates with a serious personality flaw that needs to be cured or pitied rather than celebrated.
I've known the thrill of big bets, the satisfaction of a hefty win and the despair of a lumpy loss. I can see its appeal. But I know that, to be a winner online, these things necessarily have to be tucked away in the drawer. These are the weaknesses in other players that I will exploit. The old saws of poker come out. "Games can be good and games can be fun, but rarely can they be both at the same time" and "Once you let emotions get in the way of your poker play, you are the fish".
This is where Poker and zen come together. A "perfect" poker session isn't the type described by Conor Tate online, some massive win at PLO where you chopped off four all-in 52%-shots on the spin. The perfect session is when you play 1,000, then 2,000, maybe 3,000 hands. You have some good mini-runs and bad mini-runs, but you know that you are making right decisions. When something goes wrong -- a two-outer, whatever, you move on to the next hand in a state of complete calmness. Your next decision is as cool, calculated and correct as the previous one. You are thinking quickly, smoothly, and you KNOW that you are in control of your game at everyone of your tables. No other player is irritating you, fooling you, playing you around. Everything, as they say in Louisiana, is copacetic.
The reality, of course, is usually different. There's nearly always one fucking multi-tabler who really pisses you off, who is playing a blinder, and whom you just can't seem to beat. There's one fish luckbox who is two buy-ins up and can't stop talking in the chat-box. You know he will go broke within a couple of hours (unless he leaves), and you know that it probably won't be to you. Poker, in other words, is usually about coping the best you can with these irritants, it's about attempting to attain that state of mind mentioned in the previous paragraph. You might only get to the top of that mountain very rarely, but that does not make it a bad idea to climb the next step.
______________________
One of the maddening things about the old "B1G1F" promotions was that a single person (e.g., me) would never be able to eat the second item before it went off. With stuff that freezes (bacon, the 100% beef burgers, etc) it's not a problem, but with fresh fruit and veg, the offer was fairly useless.
So, Tesco and Sainsbury now offer the opportunity on some items (the lettuce offer at Tesco caught my eye) to buy the item and to receive a voucher at check-out that can be exchanged for the same item the following week.
Obv Tesco and Sainsburys' are talking about "reducing waste", but it also increases their profits, because the take-up on these offers will clearly be less than 100%. My guess is that it will be below 50%. That means that such a promotion "costs" Tesco far less. You could have twice as many B1G1L promotions as B1G1F promotions, for less cost.
But if it's food that would otherwise be thrown away, then that's fine by me. In effect, as the Butler would put it, you are using Tesco as your freezer for goods that you wouldn't be able to freeze anyway. All that you have to do is remember to go to collect it.
++++++++++++
It's been a wearying and hard-work month online. In a sense this is good; I am beginning to see what my limits are in terms of time, energy and focus. I've become comfortable with six-tabling (four now seems slow), so it's possible that I could progress to a "comfortable" eight-table scenario for 90 minutes a time. That would boost the hands per hour very nicely -- up to 500 or so. With the progressive nature of rakeback (each 'extra' hand earns you proportionately more in rakeback than the previous hand) that makes $10 a hundred at $1-$2 easier to achieve, provided I can maintain the same winrate at the tables as I am achieving six-tabling at the moment.
The maths on that are not hard -- I could be looking at an average $40 to $50 an hour before the end of the year if things go right. That won't be the average for the whole year, although $35 now looks within reach. And there's always the chance of a stinky run that pushes me back down to 50c-$1,
One begins to see why so many "good" players are 24-tabling at $1-$2 and $2-$4 full ring rather than three-tabling at $25-$50 short-handed. Even though they can beat both games, they probably earn more at the former (with considerably less volatility and mental effort) than they could at the latter. Even when six-tabling you head into a certain degree of auto-pilot, something you have to be careful about if you are playing the same opponents again and again.
There's clearly two streams of poker thought here (and I'm not talking about full-stacking vs short-stacking this time). The business-players talk about reducing beta, generating a higher RoE and RoI, sustainability, and basically loads of business model stuff, while many of the old-schoolers talk about gambling and the thrill.
In simple terms, they can be split into "risk-avoiders" and "thrill-seekers".
The latter just can't see the point of the former ("you might as well get a job", they say) while the former look on the "thrill-seekers" as gambling degenerates with a serious personality flaw that needs to be cured or pitied rather than celebrated.
I've known the thrill of big bets, the satisfaction of a hefty win and the despair of a lumpy loss. I can see its appeal. But I know that, to be a winner online, these things necessarily have to be tucked away in the drawer. These are the weaknesses in other players that I will exploit. The old saws of poker come out. "Games can be good and games can be fun, but rarely can they be both at the same time" and "Once you let emotions get in the way of your poker play, you are the fish".
This is where Poker and zen come together. A "perfect" poker session isn't the type described by Conor Tate online, some massive win at PLO where you chopped off four all-in 52%-shots on the spin. The perfect session is when you play 1,000, then 2,000, maybe 3,000 hands. You have some good mini-runs and bad mini-runs, but you know that you are making right decisions. When something goes wrong -- a two-outer, whatever, you move on to the next hand in a state of complete calmness. Your next decision is as cool, calculated and correct as the previous one. You are thinking quickly, smoothly, and you KNOW that you are in control of your game at everyone of your tables. No other player is irritating you, fooling you, playing you around. Everything, as they say in Louisiana, is copacetic.
The reality, of course, is usually different. There's nearly always one fucking multi-tabler who really pisses you off, who is playing a blinder, and whom you just can't seem to beat. There's one fish luckbox who is two buy-ins up and can't stop talking in the chat-box. You know he will go broke within a couple of hours (unless he leaves), and you know that it probably won't be to you. Poker, in other words, is usually about coping the best you can with these irritants, it's about attempting to attain that state of mind mentioned in the previous paragraph. You might only get to the top of that mountain very rarely, but that does not make it a bad idea to climb the next step.
______________________
