Birks Corner
Oct. 14th, 2007 03:40 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
peterbirksTime was when I had some time. A long long time ago in a land far away.
Dinner on Friday at Gauchos was excellent, as expected. Chatter with Mr Barry about various hands. View of the river can be very nice on a mild evening.
Unfortunately Docklands Light Railway decided to institute its "weekend closure" of the line from Crossharbour to Lewisham just before I went home at 9pm. I don't count that as a weekend closure -- that's a Friday evening closure ... a view shared by many fellow passengers who were not best pleased. The publicity about this was pathetic (there had been no indication when I caught the train northwards at 5.30 that the station would be closing early).
Since there is no bridge nearby, there was no replacement bus service. So the only viable option was to walk from Crossharbour to Greenwich via the Greenwich Foot Tunnel. It's 13 years since I've done that walk, and back in 1994 the place was nothing like it is today. But I managed to find it.
The scene at Greenwich Cutty Sark was clearly heading towards chaos. Greenwich is busy on a Friday night, and the entrance to the DLR station is hidden down a little shopping mall. No signs at either entrance to the mall that the DLR was closed. Indeed, no signs at the station. Just two guys standing there to inform potential passengers that, basically, they were fucked. I dreaded to think what it was going to be like come 11.30 that evening.
So I got home by about 10.30 and promptly collapsed into an exhausted sleep. I've felt knackered ever since.
Oh, and my boiler isn't working properly. I told plumber on Friday morning, but when he arrived on Friday afternoon, it had started working of its own accord. Now I've figured out what's going wrong (I think). One more bit of strain in a rather stressful life.
It really is getting beyond a joke. I just want a couple of hours, somewhere in the week, to sit down and relax. I'm really going to have to take a good look at my life and start dumping stuff (possibly including the daily entries, which probably take up about four hours or more of the week, if I include replies to comments). It's not as if the hours that I am playing poker are going up. If anything, it's declining. But a year or so ago I could manage a ninety-minute walk on Sundays, and I certainly didn't have the backlog of stuff that "needs reading" and "needs watching".
Obviously the piano has taken up a bit of time -- that's probably about seven hours a week. And I'm working harder in the office. That's probably another 10 hours a week.
I guess that the mess with the bathroom over the past few weeks has also been a factor, and I have been going out a bit more than I was this time last year. and going out definitely takes up a lot of time that I don't have. But, hell, that's a bad sign in itself. I have to allocate some time to socializing. If I start saying "I could go out, but I have too much to do", then it's a slippery slope. I really would like to pay some visits to the Vic, but I just can't justify the time spent. Other people seem to have hours to spare here and there, so I should be able to manage it. But for some reason, at the moment, it isn't happening. It's all very very frustrating.
And then you get people e-mailing you about Greatest Hits. Christ, I can't even imagine finding the time for that, or, indeed, the millions of things that "need doing" around the flat, or going to see some gigs (my equivalent of 'football matches' , as iot were). Just keeping the place from succumbing to three inches of dust is the best that I can manage.
Basically, I can't cope. :-)
Here's a couple of hands from today. One shows the advantage that the flush has over the set, even if the set hits its house. The other was, just, well, was just.
BTW, this has been another 35 minutes of the day update, 45 minutes after a quick proof-read). It's now 4pm, and I reckon I've got about 12 hours of stuff to do. Jeez.
POKERSTARS GAME #HOLD'EM NO LIMIT ($0.50/$1.00) – 2
9-max Seat #9 is the button
Seat 1: Hero ($85.25 in chips)
Seat 2: Slickoz ($105.30 in chips)
Seat 3: Villain ($98.50 in chips)
Seat 4: jonny4u ($181.20 in chips)
Seat 5: fabianTo ($192.20 in chips)
Seat 6: Iskender79 ($54.65 in chips)
Seat 7: InnoASatana ($165 in chips)
Seat 8: JohnPreston9 ($109.40 in chips)
Seat 9: malandrino1 ($146.75 in chips)
Hero: posts small blind $0.50
Slickoz: posts big blind $1
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Hero [A◊ 6◊]
Villain: calls $1
all fold to
Hero: calls $0.50
Slickoz: checks
*** FLOP *** [K◊ 9◊ T◊]
Sometimes I’ll lead out here if I think opponents might check it round, but these cards look high enough to perk up the interest of a limper. Also, Pokerstars has a few more players who check-raise flops like this on speculative hands, so the CR does not look as dangerous as it would on Party or IP.
Hero: checks
Slickoz: checks
Villain: bets $3
Hero: raises $3 to $6
Any bigger check-raise and I fear that opponent will walk away from something like KQ off.
Slickoz: folds
Villain: calls $3
($15 in pot)
*** TURN *** [K◊ 9◊ T◊] [K♣]
Hero: checks
Villain: bets $6
Hero: calls $6
($27 in pot)
I’m not going mental here. I still favour opponent as having King with something (A, K, J, possibly T) although 99, TT and even QQ or JJ can’t be ruled out.
*** RIVER *** [K◊ 9◊ T◊ K♣] [7◊]
Hero: checks
Villain: bets $25
Hero: calls $25
It’s feasible that opponent will bet with AK or KQ here, although I’m not happy about the situation.
*** SHOW DOWN ***
Villain: shows [9♣ 9♡] (a full house, Nines full of Kings)
Hero: mucks hand
Villain collected $74 from pot
So it goes. But the point of the hand is that when you flop the nut flush against a set, even out of position, you are less likely to get stacked off than the set is likely to get stacked off against you. OK, I can think of quite a few players who would have been stacked off with the nut flush here, but I’m not one of them. I’m a bit surprised that opponent didn’t push it a bit harder on the flop, but I guess that the potential straight (as well as the flush) and the fact that he had bottom set caused extra caution. But why is it that the flush escapes getting stacked off, but the set doesn’t? One reason is that the set can say to himself on the flo (or, indeed, on the turn – see the next hand) that “even if I’m behind, I have outs” – fuck-it, let’s gamble. But the flush cannot say this. If the flush is behind on the turn, then its owner is drawing dead.
I’m not exactly sure what point I’m trying to make here, unless it’s the point that going all-in partly because ‘even if I am wrong. I might get lucky’ might not be as powerful an argument in favour of going all-in as people think. Obviously, it depends on what percentage of the time you need to get lucky.
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot $77 | Rake $3
Board [K◊ 9◊ T◊ K♣ 7◊]
Seat 1: Hero (small blind) mucked [A◊ 6◊]
Seat 2: Slickoz (big blind) folded on the Flop
Seat 3: Villain showed [9♣ 9♡] and won ($74) with a full house, Nines full of Kings
IP NETWORK Texas Hold'em NL $0.50/$1.00
Woo hoo, sometimes people just don’t make much sense.
Seat 1: DrGlas ($188.48 in chips)
Seat 2: Hero ($105.55 in chips)
Seat 4: wangzhongwang168 ($15.30 in chips)
Seat 5: RifRaf ($41.59 in chips)
Seat 6: Fish_2 ($40.00 in chips)
Seat 7: SCOTTYBOY1705 ($96.00 in chips)
Seat 9: Weak_Player_1 ($101.13 in chips)
Seat 10: kincsesz1 ($125.20 in chips) DEALER
DrGlas: Post SB $0.50
Hero: Post BB $1.00
Fish_2: Post BB $1.00
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Weak_Player_1 [8♣ 8♡
Dealt to Fish_2 [J♡ 7♠]
Dealt to Hero [T♣ 9◊]
wangzhongwang168: Call $1.00
RifRaf: Fold
Fish_2: Check
SCOTTYBOY1705: Fold
Weak_Player_1: Call $1.00
kincsesz1: Fold
DrGlas: Fold
Hero: Check
*** FLOP *** [8◊ 7♡ 4♠]
Hero: Bet $3.50
A nice rainbow flop. I’ll always be betting out here with an overcards open-ended straight draw.
wangzhongwang168: Fold
Fish_2: Call $3.50
Weak_Player_1: Raise to $7.00
This is a dreadful raise. A flat-call is better than a mini-raise here. A bigger raise is much better than a mini-raise. Say, Raise to $15. The mini-raise reopens the betting (so I can reraise if I’ve flopped the straight), makes the pot-to-stack-ratio such that more trouble might appear on the turn, and is generally so horrible that you have to wonder what the thought-process was. Probably the “I’ll raise to find out where I am” line. Only for the raise to tell him absolutely nothing.
Hero: Call $3.50
Fish_2: Call $3.50
*** TURN *** [J♠]
Gives me the nut straight. No time to piss around. Put in a pot-sized bet and go all-in on river provided board does not pair and spade doesn’t appear.
Hero: Bet $25.00
Fish_2: Allin $32.00
Weak_Player_1: Allin $93.13
Well, that saves that problem. What a pleasant surprise. All I have to do now is dodge the bullet on the river
Hero: Call $68.13
*** RIVER *** [Q♡]
Bullet successfully dodged
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot $240.76 Rake $3.00
Hero: wins $240.76
Could do with a few more like that!
+++++++++
Dinner on Friday at Gauchos was excellent, as expected. Chatter with Mr Barry about various hands. View of the river can be very nice on a mild evening.
Unfortunately Docklands Light Railway decided to institute its "weekend closure" of the line from Crossharbour to Lewisham just before I went home at 9pm. I don't count that as a weekend closure -- that's a Friday evening closure ... a view shared by many fellow passengers who were not best pleased. The publicity about this was pathetic (there had been no indication when I caught the train northwards at 5.30 that the station would be closing early).
Since there is no bridge nearby, there was no replacement bus service. So the only viable option was to walk from Crossharbour to Greenwich via the Greenwich Foot Tunnel. It's 13 years since I've done that walk, and back in 1994 the place was nothing like it is today. But I managed to find it.
The scene at Greenwich Cutty Sark was clearly heading towards chaos. Greenwich is busy on a Friday night, and the entrance to the DLR station is hidden down a little shopping mall. No signs at either entrance to the mall that the DLR was closed. Indeed, no signs at the station. Just two guys standing there to inform potential passengers that, basically, they were fucked. I dreaded to think what it was going to be like come 11.30 that evening.
So I got home by about 10.30 and promptly collapsed into an exhausted sleep. I've felt knackered ever since.
Oh, and my boiler isn't working properly. I told plumber on Friday morning, but when he arrived on Friday afternoon, it had started working of its own accord. Now I've figured out what's going wrong (I think). One more bit of strain in a rather stressful life.
It really is getting beyond a joke. I just want a couple of hours, somewhere in the week, to sit down and relax. I'm really going to have to take a good look at my life and start dumping stuff (possibly including the daily entries, which probably take up about four hours or more of the week, if I include replies to comments). It's not as if the hours that I am playing poker are going up. If anything, it's declining. But a year or so ago I could manage a ninety-minute walk on Sundays, and I certainly didn't have the backlog of stuff that "needs reading" and "needs watching".
Obviously the piano has taken up a bit of time -- that's probably about seven hours a week. And I'm working harder in the office. That's probably another 10 hours a week.
I guess that the mess with the bathroom over the past few weeks has also been a factor, and I have been going out a bit more than I was this time last year. and going out definitely takes up a lot of time that I don't have. But, hell, that's a bad sign in itself. I have to allocate some time to socializing. If I start saying "I could go out, but I have too much to do", then it's a slippery slope. I really would like to pay some visits to the Vic, but I just can't justify the time spent. Other people seem to have hours to spare here and there, so I should be able to manage it. But for some reason, at the moment, it isn't happening. It's all very very frustrating.
And then you get people e-mailing you about Greatest Hits. Christ, I can't even imagine finding the time for that, or, indeed, the millions of things that "need doing" around the flat, or going to see some gigs (my equivalent of 'football matches' , as iot were). Just keeping the place from succumbing to three inches of dust is the best that I can manage.
Basically, I can't cope. :-)
Here's a couple of hands from today. One shows the advantage that the flush has over the set, even if the set hits its house. The other was, just, well, was just.
BTW, this has been another 35 minutes of the day update, 45 minutes after a quick proof-read). It's now 4pm, and I reckon I've got about 12 hours of stuff to do. Jeez.
POKERSTARS GAME #HOLD'EM NO LIMIT ($0.50/$1.00) – 2
9-max Seat #9 is the button
Seat 1: Hero ($85.25 in chips)
Seat 2: Slickoz ($105.30 in chips)
Seat 3: Villain ($98.50 in chips)
Seat 4: jonny4u ($181.20 in chips)
Seat 5: fabianTo ($192.20 in chips)
Seat 6: Iskender79 ($54.65 in chips)
Seat 7: InnoASatana ($165 in chips)
Seat 8: JohnPreston9 ($109.40 in chips)
Seat 9: malandrino1 ($146.75 in chips)
Hero: posts small blind $0.50
Slickoz: posts big blind $1
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Hero [A◊ 6◊]
Villain: calls $1
all fold to
Hero: calls $0.50
Slickoz: checks
*** FLOP *** [K◊ 9◊ T◊]
Sometimes I’ll lead out here if I think opponents might check it round, but these cards look high enough to perk up the interest of a limper. Also, Pokerstars has a few more players who check-raise flops like this on speculative hands, so the CR does not look as dangerous as it would on Party or IP.
Hero: checks
Slickoz: checks
Villain: bets $3
Hero: raises $3 to $6
Any bigger check-raise and I fear that opponent will walk away from something like KQ off.
Slickoz: folds
Villain: calls $3
($15 in pot)
*** TURN *** [K◊ 9◊ T◊] [K♣]
Hero: checks
Villain: bets $6
Hero: calls $6
($27 in pot)
I’m not going mental here. I still favour opponent as having King with something (A, K, J, possibly T) although 99, TT and even QQ or JJ can’t be ruled out.
*** RIVER *** [K◊ 9◊ T◊ K♣] [7◊]
Hero: checks
Villain: bets $25
Hero: calls $25
It’s feasible that opponent will bet with AK or KQ here, although I’m not happy about the situation.
*** SHOW DOWN ***
Villain: shows [9♣ 9♡] (a full house, Nines full of Kings)
Hero: mucks hand
Villain collected $74 from pot
So it goes. But the point of the hand is that when you flop the nut flush against a set, even out of position, you are less likely to get stacked off than the set is likely to get stacked off against you. OK, I can think of quite a few players who would have been stacked off with the nut flush here, but I’m not one of them. I’m a bit surprised that opponent didn’t push it a bit harder on the flop, but I guess that the potential straight (as well as the flush) and the fact that he had bottom set caused extra caution. But why is it that the flush escapes getting stacked off, but the set doesn’t? One reason is that the set can say to himself on the flo (or, indeed, on the turn – see the next hand) that “even if I’m behind, I have outs” – fuck-it, let’s gamble. But the flush cannot say this. If the flush is behind on the turn, then its owner is drawing dead.
I’m not exactly sure what point I’m trying to make here, unless it’s the point that going all-in partly because ‘even if I am wrong. I might get lucky’ might not be as powerful an argument in favour of going all-in as people think. Obviously, it depends on what percentage of the time you need to get lucky.
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot $77 | Rake $3
Board [K◊ 9◊ T◊ K♣ 7◊]
Seat 1: Hero (small blind) mucked [A◊ 6◊]
Seat 2: Slickoz (big blind) folded on the Flop
Seat 3: Villain showed [9♣ 9♡] and won ($74) with a full house, Nines full of Kings
IP NETWORK Texas Hold'em NL $0.50/$1.00
Woo hoo, sometimes people just don’t make much sense.
Seat 1: DrGlas ($188.48 in chips)
Seat 2: Hero ($105.55 in chips)
Seat 4: wangzhongwang168 ($15.30 in chips)
Seat 5: RifRaf ($41.59 in chips)
Seat 6: Fish_2 ($40.00 in chips)
Seat 7: SCOTTYBOY1705 ($96.00 in chips)
Seat 9: Weak_Player_1 ($101.13 in chips)
Seat 10: kincsesz1 ($125.20 in chips) DEALER
DrGlas: Post SB $0.50
Hero: Post BB $1.00
Fish_2: Post BB $1.00
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Weak_Player_1 [8♣ 8♡
Dealt to Fish_2 [J♡ 7♠]
Dealt to Hero [T♣ 9◊]
wangzhongwang168: Call $1.00
RifRaf: Fold
Fish_2: Check
SCOTTYBOY1705: Fold
Weak_Player_1: Call $1.00
kincsesz1: Fold
DrGlas: Fold
Hero: Check
*** FLOP *** [8◊ 7♡ 4♠]
Hero: Bet $3.50
A nice rainbow flop. I’ll always be betting out here with an overcards open-ended straight draw.
wangzhongwang168: Fold
Fish_2: Call $3.50
Weak_Player_1: Raise to $7.00
This is a dreadful raise. A flat-call is better than a mini-raise here. A bigger raise is much better than a mini-raise. Say, Raise to $15. The mini-raise reopens the betting (so I can reraise if I’ve flopped the straight), makes the pot-to-stack-ratio such that more trouble might appear on the turn, and is generally so horrible that you have to wonder what the thought-process was. Probably the “I’ll raise to find out where I am” line. Only for the raise to tell him absolutely nothing.
Hero: Call $3.50
Fish_2: Call $3.50
*** TURN *** [J♠]
Gives me the nut straight. No time to piss around. Put in a pot-sized bet and go all-in on river provided board does not pair and spade doesn’t appear.
Hero: Bet $25.00
Fish_2: Allin $32.00
Weak_Player_1: Allin $93.13
Well, that saves that problem. What a pleasant surprise. All I have to do now is dodge the bullet on the river
Hero: Call $68.13
*** RIVER *** [Q♡]
Bullet successfully dodged
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot $240.76 Rake $3.00
Hero: wins $240.76
Could do with a few more like that!
+++++++++
no subject
Date: 2007-10-14 03:44 pm (UTC)The finance talk though interesting can be ditched too. After all, you are just bigging up the markets for the hard of thinking so the elite can time their short positions.
Isn't that what the modern financial system is all about now? A permanent saw-tooth battle to clean out small investors. There is no real value in a financial system built on credit.
I remember you giving me (or showing me) a copy of Greatest Hits in the MSO and read every word of it. I've been rummaging through a lot of old rule sets and figures that have been in the attic for 20 years. Warhammer 40K, Napoleonic and Gunfighter stuff to go on eBay. Currently painting up stuff to add value.
I've been searching on Google for all the old names I remember. Skytrex, Tabletop Games, Irregular Miniatures. They are all still there regardless of the Nintendo generation.
There is no real value in a financial system built on credit
Date: 2007-10-14 10:03 pm (UTC)"A cappuccino, sir? Sorry, we're short of change. You OK with a piglet and five turkey twizzlers?"
Good luck with the toy painting and eBay and all that. Just don't ask them for credit, because a refusal often offends.