Home, we're coming home, again

[peterbirks]

For the first time I think that I have to say that the chance of me actually buying the downstairs half of the house have moved into odds against mode -- probably 35:65. All of which is rather depressing after my hopes were somewhat high at the weekend. Needless to say this brought on a bout of insomnia. On the plus side, it also helps with weight loss.

Emotionally I know that I want to do it, but, unlike some girlie, I don't let emotions get in the way of sensible business decisions (well, not too much). I might be willing to slightly overpay for a place if there's a strong emotional involvement, but I won't pay significantly more than my estimated valuation.

Now, a house isn't "worth" what other people are willing to pay. You have to look at fundamentals. These include rental yield (even if you don't intend to rent it out), return on the cash if invested elsewhere, and other factors. There is a known lag between changes in interest rates and its impact on the housing market, and I like to be ahead of the curve when it comes to allowing for this.

So, I might have to walk away from the deal, if the current price hints are anything to go by. It may seem silly to walk away for the sake of £20K or so, but I think that you have to draw a line in the sand at some point, and then refuse to cross it.

I know that many people would be perfectly happy to have "depressing" problems such as these, but the emotional vs business dichotomy is always stressful, and the not knowing what is going to happen with my life is equally so. There are major decisions coming up, and I just don't have the faintest idea what to do. Mid-life crises indeed. Fortunately, not on a budget.

Of course, if I won £$500K in some kind of bad beat, and I had the cash in my pocket, I might reconsider paying the extra £20K or thereabouts...

+++++

Given that I was not in the best of moods, and given my recent experiences with BT, it perhaps was not the best time for someone to phone me "on behalf" of BT Total Broadband. This led to a 10-minute rant from me about how she didn't work for BT at all and, in fact, she didn't know anything about BT Total Broadband. All her company did was sell things as a third-party, and that if I actually wanted to talk to her about some techincal aspect of the service she was theoretically phoning me up about, she wouldn't have the faintest fucking idea what I was saying, because all she was paid to do was sell me stuff.

At which point, undeterred, she said that, no, she wasn't trying to sell me something (a moment of doubt entered my mind here... had I been unfair?). BT simply wanted to thank me for being a loyal customer and to offer me an upgrade...

...at which point the Birks radar zipped back into working order...

"and all I have to do is agree to a 12-month contract from this point on."

"Er, yes".

"Well, if I'm such a loyal customer, why don't they give me the upgrade anyway?"

"Er..."

"I'm not happy with BT at the moment. I think that I'll turn this down for that reason. And you can tell them that."

++++++++++

I found a computer yesterday morning. I was walking to work and I came across a whole pile of computer stuff sitting on the pavement, just north of Oxford Street. I picked up one of the Dells and started walking. At which point a lorry turned up, probably from Westminster Council, to pick up the stuff. He kind of pointed at me (this being the level of articulacy one expects) and I said "Yes?"

"You just picked that up."

Gotta give the guy 10 out of 10 for observation.

"Yes. Carry on."

At which point he sort of thought about things for a few minutes. Wondered if there was any point in worrying about it. And then said "OK".

So, off I toddled. When I got to work, I plugged it in (without monitor) and it seemed to power up okay. It says "Designed for Windows 2000", so I guess it's a bit newer than my main workhorse at home.

Current aim is to immediately reformat it. Check the spec, and then run it as a linux machine and/or anything I like that isn't Windows-related.


Not that I have time these days to be a saddo who spends hours playing with either hardware or software. Oh, for days gone by.

++++

The solid run at poker came to a slightly crashing end last night, although actually the damage wasn't that bad (I just lost what I won on Sunday, so I'm stil about $80 up on the two days given the rakeback and built-up bonus). I had one unlucky flopped nut flush that went just about perfectly. Got a third of opponents' money in on flop and the rest of it in on the turn. Needless to say the board pairs on the river and his marked set boats up to beat me. So it goes. The point is, I took this in Caro-like mode. I knew what my EV from that situation was, and if I can get 10 of those a week I'll make a lot of cash.

I'd make less cash from a misjudgment (one of the perils when playing either tired or when grumpy). I had AQ of spades and had raised 3.5 x the big blind in MP3, to be flat-called by a tightish competent player (but not an absolute rock), on the button. The board came KK4 two spades. I led out for 80% of the pot and he mini-raised me, putting the pot at 26 big blinds. I had 37 big blinds behind (I'd dribbled away some money over the previous half hour) and I reckoned this was a perfect position for him to be trying something on with a pair of 10s down to maybe a pair of sevens.

Anyhoo, I reckon I have good fold equity if he does not have a King and, even if he does have a King, I have my flush draw as outs.

So, I shove, and he instacalls with KT. No spades come to the rescue.

Ahh, that was why he mini-raised. He wasn't sure about the Ten kicker. But, lo and behold (and Matt made this observation on another blog recently), that doesn't make him capable of making a big laydown when I push.

I later found a game where two Nutters sat down. One of them caught out my AK TPTK when is 96 off became two pair on the turn. But I wasn't stacked off completely. I pushed myself back up and got it back about an hour later (long past when I should have been in bed) when my Q8 in the big blind managed to find a QQ8 flop. Nutter One had T8 and the low card on the turn followed by the Queen on the river made it certain that he would call any decent raise on the river. Unfortunately I didn't know that he had the eight, so I didn't maximise my return with my raise. But I wasn't far short of it.

Comments

Analysis

[(Anonymous)]

Surely the fact that he instacalled your all in means he wasn't even considering laying his hand down? I guess it all depends on what stakes you were playing, but if it was anything less than $2/$4 I'd say his "thought processes" went: birks raised pf so he has a pair or high cards, probably A9+, maybe suited; he's bet the flop so he doesn't have a K; wahey I have trips!; I mustn't scare him off, minraise time; whoopee he's fallen for it and gone all-in!; call call call!

Or maybe not.

Lurker

Re: Analysis

[peterbirks.livejournal.com]

Eminently possible.

But, equally possible is:

Birks raised PF, which means a reasonable hand but not a monster, given his position and the fact that he's not got any callers in front. probably A9+, maybe suited. Maybe any pair 8s or better.

Hmm. I have tens. Best flat call and see what happens.

Birks bets flop. That means nothing, because he continues more than 90% of the time.

I know, I'll mini-raise with my 10s to find out where I am.

Shit, he's pushed. He must have the King. Fold! Fold!.

In other words, we mustn't ask "how would he act given that he has trips" (where he probably would act as you describe), but we must ask instead "what range of hands do his actions possibly represent?"

But, you are probably right, his mini-raise in the circumstances was probably as you describe it. But someone thinking like that would usually flat call, wouldn't they? Maybe not. It's one that I'll put in the memory bank.

PJ

Re: Analysis

[(Anonymous)]

I wouldn't argue with any of that scenario either, and just to be clear I wasn't criticising your play (I'll leave that for matt if he wants to take a pop), rather I was disputing your comment about him doubting his kicker.

It seems to me that as soon as the flop was dealt he had decided that a) he was ahead (unjustifiable, but there you go) and b) he wanted to play for the rest of his money. I've seen people make the minraise ploy to look weak and induce a shove, and if you are continuing 90% of the time he might think this would have a high probability of working. The fact that he instacalled rules out any possiblity that he was probing for information, so I guess he just thought it was the best way to get all in. After all if you fold he takes the pot, if you call then you're probably both committed on the turn anyway.

Better players than me would analyse this better, but I've seen this scenario often enough to not rule out any number of bizarre interpretations.

Lurker

It is or it isn't

[geoffchall.livejournal.com]

Naturally I'm please to see buying downstairs drifting off the radar, given that what was partially driving it was a thought that you could combine the two flats one day. What I don't understand is why the possession of large amounts of spare cash would affect someone like you. I thought you were made of steelier stuff and would make the right investment choice based on the odds irrespective of the amount of cash involved, utility value of money and all.

Have you ever thought of just saying "No thank you" and putting the phone down when you get junk-selling calls? Much better for the bile duct.

Re: Analysis

[(Anonymous)]

The AQ hand seems OK to me ... it gets progressively worse as his chip stack increases but for the example above I can't fault it. You're a coinflip against pairs below Q and the pot is getting big so you're happy whether they fold or call. Yes, you're paying off a king but even then have a chance of the flush. Seems standard play to me.

More worrying was "But I wasn't stacked off completely. I pushed myself back up" .. perhaps I'm misinterpreting but just reload if you take a significant hit. Playing on with 25% (or whatever) of your normal buying is bad.

matt

Re: Analysis

[peterbirks.livejournal.com]

Hi Matt:

Yes, I've been thinking about this. I'm still experimenting, so when I've gone short, I've tended to play it as part of the experiment (it also makes it easier for me to see how I'm doing on the session -- and, yes, I know that this is another can of worms that I need to think about).

In fact, in the case that (I think) I mentioned above, I was reduced to 28% of my buy-in, rather than stacked off. And I reloaded immediately. This was because I wanted to double through against these guys and I wanted to double through with a full stack.

As a general rule, I'm thinking of reloading if reduced to half-buy-in. That also lets me keep some mental idea of how I'm doing. But I don't play really long sessions any more, except in extenuating circumstances as above, so keeping track of the numbers isn't generally that hard.

PJ

Re: It is or it isn't

[peterbirks.livejournal.com]

(a) If you have lumps of spare cash, the extra cash becomes marginally less valuable to you. So the extra £20K, if I had £300K more hanging around than I do at the moment, would be worth "less" in monetary terms than it is worth to me now. But the emotional return remains the same. So my action in this scenario (which, unfortunately, is very unlikely to come to pass) is rational from a "feeling good" point of view.

b) I often say "No Thank You" and put down the phone. Frequently I just put down the phone. Like I say, the call just happened to come at the wrong time.

PJ

Re: Analysis

[peterbirks.livejournal.com]

I was thinking about this hand while walking to John Lewis and back. Two points criossed my mind.

1) There are only three things that I can do here. Now, if all three are bad, it might mean that I did something wrong earlier on. But, all three aren't bad. The question is, how bad/good are all three.

This brought me onto (2)

Let's take two extreme ranges for opponent. One is that he only makes this play with the total nuts (i.e., cannot ever be beaten. In this case, KK in the hole) and the other is that he makes this play with two random cards. If he does the former, then my right play is to fold. If he does the latter, then my right play is to reraise all-in. Or is it? If I know that he will call with any two random cards then, yes, it is.

In real life, the ranges are different. Thinking in terms of Chan and Ankeman's '0' to '1', opponent might make the play with hands in the 0.4 to 0.8 value range, folding 0.0 to 0.399, and raising more with 0.81 to 1.

Alternatively, he might make the play with hands in the 0.8 to 0.9 range, while with 0.91 to 1 he might flat call, and with 0.6 to 0.799 he might flat call, and with a certain proportion of hands less than that he might fold or raise bigger.

Assessing this kind of situation comes with experience. I thought at the time that it was about 55:45 in favour of him having a medium-good pair. Perhaps it was closer to 70:30 in favour of the K. But, I suspect that even then I'm fine to push. After all, the alternatives look even worse.

PJ

Re: Analysis

[(Anonymous)]

I think this style of analysis is very difficult as it involves modelling an unknown player's behaviour. I find it's usually easier to twiddle the stack size knob.

Suppose that your stack size was so small that the pre-flop raise and continuation bet had already consumed 1/3 of your chips. The push then seems automatic for the reasons given above and the fact you're getting 2-1 if called (we assume the opponent is equally stacked). On the other hand if your stack were so big that you'd only put in 10% on the continuation then the shove is wrong IMO as it costs you too much when they do have a king. It's true you're making medium pairs fold but since you were fairly EV-neutral against them anyway this isnt a huge gain.

In your example I believe the figure is around 20% of your stack on the pre-flop raise and continuation so it's clearly marginal either way. However by agreeing that with 33% in a push is correct, and with only 10% in that it isnt, then I think it's much easier to get a handle on how marginal/out-of-line 20% might be. I still think it's on the OK side but not by much.

matt