Liquidity

[peterbirks]

I seem to have excelled myself in the inefficiency stakes.

Although I came out with plenty of dollars, I didn't bring a back-up sterling reserve because I have my Schwab card (which I have used many times) to access my dollar account. I also have my Smile debit card. So, I thought, who needs sterling back-up?

Having decided that $15-$30 and a "serious" game was needed, using my online bankroll rather than my cash bankroll, I went to withdraw some money. Schwab card, no good. Smile debit card. No good.

I quickly figured out that no US ATMs in the casinos seemed to cover the Delta network as used by the Co-op Bank. Maybe there are other ATMs out there that do. I shall check.

With the Schwab card, I eventually noticed that the expiry date was June 2006. Fuck. Did Schwab send me a new card? Did I bring the old one by mistake? Whatever, it was seriously annoying, cutting me off from a major source of cash. And I don't make mistakes like that normally.

I'm hardly going to pay the extortionate rates charged to withdraw cash via credit cards, so that leaves me with the cash in my pocket for gambling purposes. I can use the cards for the Belz mall purchases (but not the Schwab one, obviously), so I appear to be somewhat fucked.


I played a couple of hours in the MGM last night and lost another $70, but that caused little concern, mainly because it was a generally tighter game and I simply ran slightly bad. Clearly the disturbing thing about what happened previously was my continual coming up against situations with which I was unfamiliar. If that kind of thing messes up my head, I shall have to think again about any No Limit ventures, because for a year or so, new scenarios crop up all the time.

++++

Something has definitely changed in me over the past five years. It used to be that, when I was in my LV hotel room, I would turn on the TV to see the local news, find out what was happening. This trip, the TV has remained resolutely off. Perhaps that's because I have Internet access for international news. But I don't think that is all of it. I just like to lie there in bed, in the dark, doing nothing. The sheer efort required to actually get up seems enormous, even if I've ben sleeping for 10 hours. Perhaps part of that is the increased strain and stress in my life when I am not on holiday. Perhaps the body is still recharging. Perhaps new things now scare me. Or perhaps I'm plain jus' gettin' old.

Comments

[simonbillenness.livejournal.com]

American local TV news is just not worth watching.

I stick to newspapers, magazines, internet and listservs.

[mrwarfrog.livejournal.com]

Adds a vote for old!

[jellymillion.livejournal.com]

I can't help wondering if you're thinking too much. Is it not likely that these unfamiliar situations are a product of other players being bad, rather than good? In which case, your edge is greater, even if variance may also be higher. If you saw a $2/$4 table online with 70% seeing the flop, you'd be in like a shot, wouldn't you? Blimey, even at limit I'd be there too.

How much thinking time do you have per hand when four-tabling online against single-tabling live? Got to be at least an 8-fold difference, much more, I'd imagine. Ample time to think yourself into a world of weirdness.

[peterbirks.livejournal.com]

Well, yes. It occurred to me to look at the winning regulars and see what they did, and they are certainly very ABC. Their strategy seems to be to see slightly more flops than I do, to raise pre-flop far less, and then to play post-flop in a way that seems to work, but which I haven't quite figured out.

But these aren't the "big" winners. They are the old-bloke grinders. Every big winner I have seen seems to have a style not dissimilar to my own, but a fraction looser in the calling stakes.

I've ben getting away from some good hands afer I've been beaten on the river. And I've called a couple of guys down when there was a chance that I was winning (albeit a small one) and I have won the pot.

I know what you mean about "over-thinking", but I'm a habitual theorist. Some people are happy with "as long as it works, who cares?" but I'm not.

As you say, we are in a situation where my edge is greater, the variance is greater, the cost per hand (rake, tips, etc) is greater and the number of hands per hour is fewer.

PJ

HIgh Finance in the New Global Economy

[real-aardvark.livejournal.com]

Yes, it's a pain, isn't it? Try working abroad for a living. You get stiffed by your bank, you get stiffed by your "umbrella company" (ie accountants), and you get stiffed by your middle-man (aka "recruitment agency").

I am in the unusual position of not being stiffed by the middle-man, possibly because he's Swedish and the other two are English (Quaker, hem hem) and Swiss, respectively. However, it does take an awful lot of shouting at the middle-man to get the other two into line. Even then, I'm charged god-knows-what -- I have no choice -- by Lloyds and £400 per month by the Swiss for something that is basically automatic. Did I mention that I have to front £100 to get everything set up for automatic bank transfers via IBAN? And that "automatic" transfer takes the same three business days as does "manual" transfer before I can actually withdraw money?

But enough of my whining. Back to your case.

Firstly, you fucked up. You've admitted that. Carrying an out-of-date credit card is no big deal -- we've all done that -- and sometimes a bit of sweet-talk from a threatening six-foot six maniac like me or a sweet, charming dwarf such as yourself can help there.

However, carrying a Delta card as your main plastic source is incomprehensibly dumb. Worse, you just had to go and make it one on the Co-op bank, didn't you?

Your student days are long over, and it's time to admit that to yourself.

All piss-taking aside, you really need to consider getting an American Express card. (Yes, I know this sounds like an advert. I've worked for them. I hate them. But I've been inside the credit card industry for a while, and I Know These Things.) They offer certain facilities that I can only tell you about if you roll up your trouser-leg, wave a trowel in the air and make the sign of the Holy Grail, and mumble something about sex with barnyard fowl, but that's not important right now.

What the American Express card offers, even in these joyous days of globalisation, is pretty much a cast-iron guarantee that you can get decently liquid immediately, anywhere in the world, which is a handy back-up to the Co-op. Provided you have a decent credit history, which sadly I don't, so I'm fucked. You, on the other hand, have no excuse at all.

On a different note, have you considered playing dollar/liar's poker with the people around the bar? I've always found this an entertaining and profitable pastime, particularly if the drunkards in question are playing with (preferably someone else's) plastic. If this is possible -- and it might be, considering my complete lack of skill at poker proper -- it's an even easier way to make money off incompetents.

Mind you, I agree with you. Given the fact that credit card withdrawals have been networked instantly through exactly the same systems globally for ten to fifteen years now, it does seem a little absurd to be gouged for 2.75% minimum. (And it goes higher. Randomly, as far as I can make out.)

Re: HIgh Finance in the New Global Economy

[peterbirks.livejournal.com]

Hi Pete:

I'm not illiquid. I have a Platinum Amex, which I moan about paying three hundred-odd quid a year for every time the bill comes round, but which does seem to save lots of hassles. I also have a Visa and a Citigroup Mastercard. If I ran out of cash, I could get more. I just hate paying credit card cash advance fees (and it's so long since I used a credit card for that anywhere, let alone in Vegas, that I would't know how to calculate what it was costing me.

I've NEVER used the Amex to get cash (even though I now have the magical pin) so I've got no idea what the fees for that are. I assume that I could just stick it into a machine anywhere, tap in my pin, and watch the machine disgorge thousands of dollars of cash. Then I get back home and a couple of weeks later the bill arrives, with the cost equal to thousands of dollars of cash times 2. That's not the kind of liquidity I want.

PJ

Re: HIgh Finance in the New Global Economy

[real-aardvark.livejournal.com]

Er, no. That's not the way it works. Or at least, not the way it used to work.

Basically, you take (took?) your friendly UK cheque book along to the local Amex Travel Services Office, write out a cheque for (if memory serves) up to £500 or £1000 or so, and guarantee it with your Amex card. Something like half of it comes in cash, and the other half in Amex funny money. The latter is charged at the usual rate (around 1.5%?) and the former isn't charged at all.

Amex maintains a world-wide float of around half a billion dollars or so for this purpose. I have no idea why. Around about six weeks later, they get around to depositing your cheque on your UK account.

Still, since I doubt you have your cheque book on you at the moment, I don't suppose this information is much use to you.