Cattle sick, Nation mourns

[peterbirks]

You could have a global meltdown in the financial markets and Radio Four would mention it in passing. But the second you get an outbreak of foot-and-mouth, the entire station goes on national alert.

Yes, Radio Four remains that last bastion of the old BBC culture -- that trade is somehow "distasteful" and that most of its listeners are gentlemen farmers whose only other contact with the outside world is Country Life.

I tell you, it was like the Second World War had broken out again and the Germans had invaded overnight. Wall-to-wall coverage, an emergency live edition of Farming Today, old Tories wheeled out in their bathchairs to comment on "the summer of 2001". I'm surprised no-one mentioned the outbreak in the 1960s. They will, they will.

But, all credit to Gordon Brown. Tony Blair utterly fucked up the response in 2001 (which at least had one good upshot -- the death of the worst ministry in the history of the world, MAFF), mainly because he was more worried about an election than about a bunch of people living in seats that he had little chance of winning anyway.

Brown, meantime, can clearly feel the direction of the wind quite quickly, and promptly announced that he was "returning to London" this morning.

This is a weird hangover from pre-telephone days, as far as I can see. Christ, the man is on holiday at a time of national crisis! He must be completely out of touch with the situation! Why isn't he back in London!

Although it would have made some sense to talk about teleconferencing and lowering his personal carbon footprint, Brown knows that the BBC and opposition politicians like to see a grim-faced poitico heading to Downing Street for "crisis talks". They called Blair the master of image, but Brown obviously knows a thing or two about it.

Brown is heading for the personal "Birks test". Will he have the courage to go to the country in October? You can imagine the dilemma. "I'll probably win, and perhaps with a bigger majority. But what if something goes wrong and I lose? I'll be one of the shortest-serving PMs in history. And, well, I might be doing even better in a couple of years..."

In fact, there is absolutely no chance that he will be doing "better" in a couple of years. Thus far in his short tenure, he's not put a foot wrong. You can't stay that lucky for two years. In EV terms it's a no-brainer.

++++++++++++++++

In the poker world, should you go for sponsorship deals if they are offered? Or, to put it another way, should the obtaining of a sponsorship deal be your major goal?

See some interesting differences of opinion over at http://www.secretsoftheamateurs.blogspot.com/ where Big Dave wonders whether Andy would be so blasé or dismissive about it if he had ever suffered the tsunami of a bad run.

I can't help but feel that there's a hidden subtext here - that several people are trying to make a living at tournament poker with absolutely abysmal bankroll management. That's why they dream of a sponsorship deal. They want to "live the life" but don't have the bankroll for it. Alternatively, if your aim is not to "live the life", but to accumulate the cash, then sponsorship deals, and the concomitant requirements, are less attractive.

I mean, let's face it, if you accept a sponsorship deal, you are working in PR. For some people (say, Greg Raymer, as a good example) this is not a problem (well, it doesn't seem to be), because you are naturally affable and the genuine "you" fits in with what is required by the sponsoring company.

But I would guess that for most poker players the requirement to act in a certain way would not be so natural. It's a cross that has to be borne to permit you to live the tournament circuit lifestyle.

It all comes back to metagame considerations. Exactly what are you doing the whole thing for? And what helps you achieve those aims? For some, a sponsorship deal is the dream ticket to those aims. For others, it's just swapping one yoke for another.

+++++++++++


Iggy has posted an entry so long that I haven't had time to read it, yet. In fact it took me five minutes to scroll down it to find what I knew I was looking for - a link to this post:

http://www.upforanything.net/poker/archives/002159.html

where Brad "Otis" Willis makes the observations frequently seen amongst the "just into the 30s" poker player. It generates some very interesting and intelligent responses as well (2+2, compare and contrast. Did someone invent that poster Rob Burgundy? I've yet to see him contribute anything of merit to a single thread, so I guess he's an early 20s guy who just loves to rack up the numbers of posts - oh, and who has even less of a life than me.)

FWIW, I think that Brad is a mite unfair on the youth of today. Sure, the high-fives and other antics are irritating, but I've only developed genuine feelings of disgust at the actions of older players -- usually long-time losers who need to angle-shoot to reduce their loss rate. I recall two examples in Vegas where cards -- quite clearly seen by all of the players -- were technically not "tabled". In both cases the other player was over 60 and won the pot by claiming that if the cards are not tabled face-up, then they are dead.

As I said both times, I know the rules. No angle-shooter is going to get cash out of me by pretending to muck. I never let go of my winning hand until the dealer is pushing the chips in my direction. In one case it was a novice who lost out, while in the other case it was another old guy. Actually, he really ought to have known better. What he did was expose one card on the turn (deliberately), He then turned it back over. On the river he bet and was called, and he turned over the other card, which gave him the straight. He then placed the first card in the muck. Angle-shooter promptly claimed the pot because both cards had not been tabled simultaneously. I really hope I never descend to that kind of level.

But these were not kids; these were old guys. The whooping and hollering might be louder amongst the youngsters, but the collusion and the angle-shooting spreads across all age groups.

+++++++


Speaking of Mr Burgundy (and, BTW, I'm aware of the "Anchorman" derivation) - here's a fascinating thread on botulism.

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/showflat.php?Cat=0&Number=11501450&an=0&page=0#Post11501450

It seems obvious that the original poster (Kornman) is a mainland European who previously worked for 888. He made the astute observation that many poker sites rank heavily winning bots alongside heavily winning poker players -- both damage what he describes as the "ecosystem" and we would describe as "everyone loses slowly while we hoover up the rake".

Ron Burgundy's (posts, 4574) considered response was

"Could someone translate this post into English plz?

Everyone else could understand it. I'm surprised someone else didnt type TLDNR (see the Brad post)


Many 2+2ers live in some kind of Malmuthian hermetism, consisting mainly of the line "My interests equal the general interests". This can be extended even to concepts of "justice". I don't know how many times I've typed "Life isn't fair. Learn it now" into a chat box.

One response was

"Poker is a game with simple rules. Games are fun because they're pure competition within a well-defined framework (rules). Being punished for playing the game too well (arbitrary meta-rule) is unfair and unreasonable."

LIF - LIN.

A second response that I see time and again is that Poker sites should value winning players "because they play more, and so generate more rake".

The lack of logic in this argument can most easily be seen if you say that this argument could be applied, 10-fold, to bots. All that poker sites care about is that money does not leave thepoker economy before it hits their own bottom line. It matters not that a player generated $1000 in rake this week if he takes $11,000 off other players. To a poker site, that is ten grand lose, not a grand won.

At least, that was how I saw it, until one astute poster (yes, they are there, if you look hard enough) pointed out that if you are a "skin", then the argument collapses. Skins want winning players, because they generate more rake, and the money that they win comes from players who are probably playing at other skins. So, the money lost by the other players doesn't cost the skin any money, while the winning player plays more, and thus generates more rake for the skin.

This is a very important point, because it basically means that the business model of a poker skin is different from the poker model of a non-skin site such as Pokerstars or Full Tilt. Stars and FTP want me to "lose slowly", i.e., break even against other players, losing just the rake. For them, that is the most sustainable model.

Skins, meanwhile, want me to win, so that I will play more, and at higher stakes. Skins are fighting for the best players playing at the biggest stakes, and will offer rakeback deals to get them.

+++++++++++++++++

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

Nice post. Obviously I agree with a lot of it as I've written similar many times before. The only forum on 2+2 worth visiting now is NVG as the insanity is upfront with no pretention. I remember making a similar point on why Party killed its rakeback deals and the usual 2+2 response was "but good players are great for the site..." Solipsism. I guess that is an affliction more common with tourney players as well as in general being misanthropes. A successful cash game player, at least live, has to develop some people skills at some point. The same isn't true for live tourney players - who would tolerate Hellmuth, Tony G et al if not for their cash dontation skills. SO you're right, the site advocate thing probably weighs very heavy on them. But having said that, have you seen who some of those sponsored players are? It's not clear the sites care how good they are at PR either.

gl

bdd

[(Anonymous)]

and I know you have a thing about R4...but cmon, In Our Time? The half 6 comedy stuff? It's not all bad.

gl

bdd

[peterbirks.livejournal.com]

You've got me a bit wrong, Dave. I like Radio Four. The "anti-business" concept is endemic to the BBC, and it reaches its apotheosis with some parts of Radio Four. One can almost imagine the length of John Humphrys' nose as he looks down it whenever he has to talk about a business story.

Notwithstanding that, it's still one of my stations of choice (running roughly Radio Four, Radio Six, Radio Three in order of time devoted).

Indeed, I seem to be one of the few people left under the age of 60 who still likes The Now Show,

BTW, I saw Frank Skinner on TV this evening. What has he done to his hair. I literally did not recognize him until he spoke. He looked like a cross between Rod Hull and a 60s hippie. Most off-putting.

PJ

Ooh! Get you, dear!

[real-aardvark.livejournal.com]

As a fellow Brummie, I must leap to the defence of Frank Skinner's hair ...

... Or maybe not. What are we, girl scouts? Well, obviously not, since they've all joined the boys' equivalent.

It is, indeed, an interesting question as to whether the esteemed editor of this blorgan is under the age of 60. I can assure you, however, that there are at least one persons out here who think The Now Show is the most reliably funny broadcast comedy around -- on any medium.

Part of this is (their deliberate) nostalgia. There are hints of political satire going all the way back to TW3.

Part of this is the tunes by Mitch Benn. "I like a good tune -- yer forced to, aint'cha?*"

The fact that it's generally an intelligent oasis amidst oafish, self-indulgent crap doesn't hurt it either.

Still not a patch on "I'm sorry, I haven't a clue," though.

And, since you're aspiring to senility through the young age of sixty: what exactly is the difference between "the worst ministry in the history of the world: MAFF" and the even more ridiculous DEFRA?

People in the countryside want to know.

It makes no difference to you in SExx. It makes no difference to me in Bxx (and in California next year -- hooray!). But the sad thing is, the difference between MAFF and DEFRA over the last ten or so years in the English countryside is probably weighted in favour of MAFF.

Now, that's scary.

(*) Cheese shop sketch.

Re: Ooh! Get you, dear!

[peterbirks.livejournal.com]

Mitch Benn is brilliant. We saw him do a couple of songs live at the Lyric Hammersmith charity do and it was tear-jerkingly funny. I think I must get some tickets for The Now Show (I think that they record at the Drill Hall, which is quite close by the office).

As for MAFF vs DEFRA, the impression I have gained from DEFRA is that it contains a fraction fewer no-hopers at political and civil service levels. OK, at ministerial or secretarial level it might have more than its fair share of politicos with a great future either behind them or in some kind of alternative universe, and to say that the import of some Home Office people might make for an improvement is, I admit, a trifle optimistic. But it does (to me) seem to have performed somewhat better than MAFF, where the bureaucratic bungling has, I believe, been compressed into the new Civil Service beginners' textbook, entitled "This Is How It Shouldn't Be Done When There Is A Crisis".

PJ

Re: Ooh! Get you, dear!

[real-aardvark.livejournal.com]

No no no. That would be an Indian Civil Service beginners' textbook. We do things differently here.

The equivalent book would be "Multi-faith feast days, and how to bury your shit under a bushel. Crisis, what crisis? It's an EU directive."

However, I do take your point about binning political and bureaucratic failures into a no-hope ministry. And I'd love to think that DEFRA wins on a technical knockout over MAFF ... as would every farmer who is still waiting for EU money after two years of IT bumbling.

There's a very bizarre goat, wearing spectacles and typing on a computer and called "Frank," apparently, to the right whilst I am typing this. Isn't monetarising the internet fun?

All I was saying was: it's odd that a couple of townies like us think that this is an obscenely failed enterprise. Christ, I even loathe mowing the lawn, let alone castrating a bunny rabbit (or whatever they do in the country). If it gets us this steamed up, think about what it does to people whose lives are affected by these idiots.

Thanks for the tip about attending The Now Show. I may very well do that.

Re: Ooh! Get you, dear!

[real-aardvark.livejournal.com]

Now, I hate to be paranoid, but my last paragraph was snipped in the bud. (Much like the aforementioned bunny.) It read:

'There's a very bizarre goat, wearing spectacles, called "Frank," and at a computer keyboard, to the right of me whilst I type this. Normally I would put this down to a very bad drug experience.

Don't you just love the idea of monetarizing the internet experience?'

Re: Ooh! Get you, dear!

[(Anonymous)]

They moved the Now Show recordings from the Drill Hall to the Radio Theatre on Oxford St for the current series (and onwards). I went twice and both times security checks made the queueing an hour-long disaster. The audience is actually pretty young I'd say, and it's easy to imagine that a lot of the jokes are sailing over the heads of some, particularly Punt and Dennis's nostalgia stuff. Mitch Benn draws a large whooping following for sure; personally I can't stand him, but then I'm not a fan of musical comedy in general. Play tunes or tell jokes, but not both. Life would be dull if we were all the same though. On the occasions when he turns up, Marcus Brigstocke always produces a masterpiece, but when he set off on a rant about the moral rectitude of paying tax the other week I swear I could hear the intake of breath from the assembled throng of New Model Cameronites in the audience.

But go, it's fun, and you don't get Hugh Dennis's raptor impressions on the radio.

Lurker

Re: Ooh! Get you, dear!

[(Anonymous)]

Of course I mean Broadcasting House... in Portland Place.

[countingmyouts.livejournal.com]

Excellent job on bringing up that 2+2 poster that discussed the skin model versus non-skin model, Peter.

It would seem relatively easy for the skin sites to give themselves a good chance of hitting the target for their model by readily offering up rakeback and other benefits to winning or break-even high volume players.

For the non-skin sites, busting profitable bots would be very important. But what about winning, non-bot players and the impact that these players have on their poker site ecosystem? I am not a "it's rigged" kind of guy, but I could certainly see why a non-skin site would take measures to expand the life span of the losing players. And I also don't buy the argument that it would be too difficult for the site to do. There are many talented mathematicians and actuaries that could do it.

Michael

[peterbirks.livejournal.com]

Hi Michael:

The obvious strategy would be to "catch" winning players cheating, but to let losing players carry on. Or to ban them for abusing chat privileges, or to take a bit longer clearing their deposits/sending them cheques. Making life "awkward" for winning players who you would like to get rid of is something that casinos are past masters at.

A point has also been raised that not all losing players are created equal. There's a theory, and it seems a reasonable hypothesis, that taking action against winning players wouldn't make any difference, because the "bell curve" of winners to losers would always remain the same; it would just be that some of the players who were losers would become winners. In other words, there would be no point in non-skin sites making life tough for winning players, because all that would do would be to reduce the poker site's overall turnover, while not changing the proportion that was "taken out" of the ecosystem by whoever happened to be this month's winninf player subset.


To put it another way, suppose a site had a "drop" of $1m a week, while winning players "took out" $500,000. So, you ban the winning players.

This reduces the drop to $600,000, because you have got ris of the winning players. However, this means that some players who were previously break-even players, are now winners. They "take out" a similar percentage -- about $300,000.

So you ban them.

This reduces the drop to $400,000, and the players who were previously losers, but who became breakeven pplayers after you banned the first lot, are now inners. And they "take out" $150,000.

And so on. Despite a subset of winning players taking money out of the ecosystem, it's more profitable for the poker site to allow the winning players to carry on. Better for the poker site to try to change how the losing players lose. Hence the creation of blackjack, casino, and sports-betting options.

PJ

[countingmyouts.livejournal.com]

Very good points, Peter. I don't think it is in the site's interest to get rid of winning players.

I was alluding more to the possibility of a "forced subsidy", where the winners are not allowed to win as much as possible and the losers are kept around longer. The winners stay satisfied because they are winning, so they continue to play at the site, while the losing players get more play before going bust, so more rake is generated for the site.

I think a model could be built to do this. I do not agree with the belief of most players that it is impossible because it isn't in the site's best interest to do it. I really don't think this is going on, but I am not going to say it's not possible, either.

Michael

[(Anonymous)]

Michael,

I've talked about this at length. It's not that it woul dbe hard to do, rather that it would be hard to do robustly over large scales and instantly. Poker software is actually pretty dumb. A good summary is here:

http://www.cardplayer.com/author/article/all/227/8391

gl

bdd

[andy-ward-uk.livejournal.com]

Nice article Dave. And FYI :

http://www.badastronomy.com/bad/tv/foxapollo.html#flag

Andy :-)

[(Anonymous)]

Tx, Mr W. There used to be a programme on C4 called Late Night Talk or something. It was full of pseudo-bohemian types with goatees, polo necks and incessant smoking. ANyway they all talked about the Apollo conspiracy with huge matter of factness which kind of blew my insomniac, much younger mind. WTF? Capricorn One for real? Of course I've seen the retorts since then...probably the same page as you showed. Or maybe even a NASA one. I think sometimes my stuff might be a bit subtle for the average CP reader tho.

gl

bdd

[andy-ward-uk.livejournal.com]

Cheers Dave,

I used to work with a guy who was absolutely convinced it was a hoax. Standard, intelligent guy in all other respects. If you ever made the mistake of talking about it he would whip out some photocopies and start off "Where are the stars then ? Look at that footprint, how can that be there ? The shadows ! The mountains !". I love a good conspiracy theory but this one's a bit much.

I will get around to continuing the debate on SOTA, it's just that I'm reading The Black Swan and it has a lot of relevance too, so I'm trying to finish it first.

Andy.