(no subject)

[peterbirks]

I want to talk about happiness and well being, about those rare, unexpected moments when the voice in your head goes silent and you feel at one with the world.

Actually, I don't. But that was such a great paragraph with which to start a chapter (and I bet that no-one gets where it is from) that I felt obliged to quote it.

I'm not sure what I want to talk about really. I liked the line from the CEO of Germany's West LNB, where he described the current money market situation and lack of willing lenders as "not uncritical overall".

Well, that's a nice spin on the matter.

Then Barclays had to/chose to borrow more than £300m under the BoE emergency facility, but I thought that was less interesting (UK-wise) than HBOS's statement that it was providing financing for its Grampian Financing unit "until such a time as market pricinfg improves". The point here is that HBOS's cash is not in a bottomless pit. As one analyst put it, its position is "constrained".

But, panic over? The money markets turned around yesterday. Did the arbitragers move in to save the day? Quite possibly. One month bills back up 87 basis points to 2.98% (a move of such a size that until last Friday it would probably have made the headlines) and, in a topsy-turvy nuthouse of an economy we have at the moment, the hilarious situation of there being an auction of government debt (remember, the debt that bankers were killing each other to buy last Thursday and Friday?) where there was hardly enough interest to buy the $32bn of securities on offer. Now, since about $50bn of commercial asset paper matures every business day, one has to assume that quite a large proortion of that was renewed -- by someone.

And that's also an indication that the buyers are appearing. One forced seller of loans offloaded the debt at 95 cents on the dollar. Fairly poor if you think that they could probably have sold it at 99 cents on the dollar a couple of weeks ago, but a lot better than "no buyers at any price".

I think that all the big money was made on Friday, Monday and yesterday, and now all that we have to see is how far the appetite for risk has unwound at a fundamental level. In other words, what will the spread of charged rates be between T-Bills and single A securities, and between single A and "junk", when the dust settles? And, perhaps equally importantly, will the lenders develop new ways to assess risk, now that the credibility of the rating gencies has been shot to hell?

++++++

Some questions I've been asking myself.

If I am in the Big Blind, and the button raises first-in to 4x the BB, what are my ranges for

(a) calling and (b) reraising,

given the following scenarios: (I have a full stack of 100 BBs in all the situations).

Button raises 50%: Button is full stack
Button raises 50%: Button is half stack

Button raises 30%: Button is full stack
Button raises 30%: Button is half stack

Button raises 20%: Button is full stack
Button raises 20%: Button is half stack
Button raises 20%: Button is short stack

Part Two:

If I reraise, I'm invariably leading out. But if I call, what should I do in the following situations for all the above scenarios.

a) I flop top pair mediocre kicker
b) I flop complete air (percentage check-fold, percentage bet out, percentage check raise?)
d) I flop a vulnerable overpair
e) I flop an eight or nine-out draw to the near-nuts or nuts, but which could be vulnerable to a redraw.

These are situations that arise fairly frequently and I think that at the moment I am giving up my blind far too often.

++++++

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

I'm calling with any small/medium pair, any suited ace, suited connectors (but maybe not baby ones). Why? Because these are all going to be reasonably well-defined post-flop and I don't want to re-raise with them and face an allin as I can only beat a bluff.

I'm re-raising with big hands AA-JJ/AK/AQ simply for value but I'm also re-raising with hands that I feel are sufficiently ahead of his range but that I don't really want to play out of position e.g. KQ, KJ, AT that sort of thing. I'm secretly happy if he folds here. Against a tight button this set reduces, against a loose button it increases and would include some medium pairs.

If they're making it 4 total then I'll usually make it 12 total (8 more for them to call) so I don't care whether they have a stack of 50 or 100 at this point.

If he pushes allin a half-stack after I re-raise then I'm dumping that second group but will probably call with a group one hand, depending of course on the pot odds, my read and the player's image.

With a full stack I'm only calling with the very best hands. I could easily pass QQ for example.

Part Two:

I'm not invariably leading out if I re-raised. I'm now out of position heads-up and it sucks. I may be check-raising big draws if my suited connectors or AX-suited come good. Basically I might check hands where I have a big EV but it's not a disaster if he checks behind.

If I called as opposed to re-raising then I have one of my cunningly selected well-defined post-flop hands. So I don't really have the problem of flopping top pair, mediocre kicker. I would have folded or re-raised KJ to begin with. Either I have a big flush/straight draw or set or I'm gone. I suppose case (d) might arise when I would probably check-raise. Why wouldnt I lead out with an overpair? Because your lead out just means "Ha! Low flop! Your AK no good" so the raiser will raise with virtually anything, including AK, and if you're now folding an overpair you're making a big mistake but you're stacking off when he does genuinely have a big pair. Check-raising may force him out, as he's far less likely to re-re-raise with AK here, and also allow you an escape route. Perhaps. It's just horrible being out of position.

matt

[peterbirks.livejournal.com]

Hi Matt:

Thanks for that.

The reason that I've been thinking about this is that, although it's horrible being out of position (hence my tending to fold too often), it isn't necessarily unprofitable. I also noted that the players I disliked the most were those who were willing to repop from the big blind. Luckily, at $100 buy-in there aren't too many of these, and they tend to be cagey about doing against any raise bar a first-in raise on the button. But I will meet more of them on the way up. And in short-handed games, this situation arises even more often. So, horrible though it is to be OOP, you have to learn to cope with the horribleness.

If these re-poppers irritate me, then I'd quite to irritate other players the same way, hence my ponderings.

You don't refer much to the short-stack players, but I have my views on that already. It's the deep-stack situations that I want to think about the most.

The only slight difference of opinion that I would put forward is that, although a lead out from the blind on a low flop (or something like JJ5 rainbow) to you or me shouts "Hah, your AK no good!" (and when I play $200 buy-in this would be my default assumption), at the $100 buy-in people tend to read the lead-out more at face value -- perhaps because at this level that is frequently the right way to read it. Big Biinds call the raise, hit a vulnerable hand (say, 98s on a board of 855), and are panicked into betting.

This scenario (the lead-out on the low flop) was what caught me out in that hand I mentioned a while ago, where I stupidly let myself get stacked off with AA against a flopped set. He bet smallish, I thought that he was saying "Hah! your AK no good!" I raised, and then he pops all-in. My brain has headed down the wrong route. I think it's imporant to keep the alternatiove scenarios in mind. So, in that situation, even though I am right to raise (because he is normally saying either "Your AK no good" or "I have a vulnerable hand that I think is best at the moment, but I'm not sure"), once in a blue moon he is saying "I've flopped a set".

One of the biggest dangers for me is playing pairs (from anywhere I happen to be) when I say to myself pre-flop "either I flop a set here or I am gone", and then some kind of situation arises post-flop (say, my medium pair is an overpair) and I say to myself "hmm, on the other hand..."

PJ

[(Anonymous)]

Sure, if betting low flops makes AK fold then bet low flops!

If however it makes AK raise then check-raise overpairs and lead out sets. Check-raising will hopefully allow you to distinguish between AK and AA when you have an overpair. Sets don't need to distinguish between AK and AA and neither does air.

Beware of boards with a King though when you have AA and have raised pre-flop (as in your example). Apart from short-stack situations no-one is giving you action unless they can beat AK which is the same thing as beating AA. This seems obvious and yet I haven't seen it in print. The presence of the King meant it wasn't a low flop and was a COMPLETELY different scenario.

matt

[peterbirks.livejournal.com]

Yes, I remember now. For some reason I had it in my head that it was a 652 flop when he had 66 and I had AA.

Yes, the presence of the King changes things completely.

PJ

[ukastronomy.livejournal.com]

Paul Auster's new book, The Brooklyn Follies.