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peterbirksI got caught driving in a flash flood yesterday. I'd already had a hold-up driving down to Canterbury, caused by a BMW deciding that driving along the hard shoulder upside down for a couple of hundred yards might be an entertaining experiment — an opinion not, I imagine, shared by the presumably now dead driver.
Then I was driving Graham to Chilham where we planned to embark on a 5km walk. Chilham is a very pretty village. I had last been there over 30 years ago with some Kent University football and rugby types, where they quaffed much beer in the manner that university sports types do. It's still pretty, although its appeal was slightly reduced by the fact that (a) we couldn't find it, and (b) rain was coming down in torrents, interspersed with rather spectacular lightning strikes.
We had driven past the correct turning to the village, partly caused by Graham thinking that the village was on our right rather than on our left (caused by our bearing right a mile or so earlier rather than bearing left). This meant that we were driving down a narrow B Road, through surface water just this side of petrifying. That was when I saw perhaps my second fatality of the day -- a motorbike skidded onto the verge and police and ambulance waving people through a single lane of six inches of water.
The planned walk was cancelled (although we did eventually find Chilham).
However, the day was not wasted. Dinner in The Goods Shed (the former engine shed of Canterbury West station) was my idea of how a restaurant should be. Spacious, high ceilings, gorgeous weather, an almost al fresco feel. It would have been perfect had there been a canal outside the windows, rather than platform 2 of Canterbury West.
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My mum appears to have sprained her ankle, so I am on double shopping duty at the moment. With no bank holidays in sight and no ordinary holidays booked (or planned, despite me still having 20 days available!) it's just a long grind ahead for a couple of months. The price war in the poker world is having the bad effect of me targeting a rather higher number of hands played per month than I have achieved previously. My track record in this is not good, although last month I did crawl to a $1,350 profit on the 26,000 hands I clocked up. That's a crap rate ($5.20 a hundred), but better than a loss.
The problem is, the marginal benefit for the "extra" hands is so good. I haven't tabulated it precisely, but I'd be surprised if at Party it was less than 5 cents a hand, while at Stars it might be about 4 cents a hand. That means that an extra 10k hands in a month nets me $500 before I even start winning. If I can manage my beginning-of-the-year EV of about eight bucks a hundred, that makes $1,300 EV for 10k hands. That's a nice hourly rate that's hard to reject provided that you can keep the mental focus to achieve it.
I really feel that I am still running bad at the moment. What's interesting is how circumspectly people are playing weak flushes these days. I had 7d5d in the big blind and got in for nothing. Flop came 8d4dJs and I led out for 3/4 of the pot. Opponent min-raised and I called. Turn came 3d and I check-called a half-pot bet. River was a black Ace and I led out for 40% of the pot. That means I (and my opponent) have only got about 20% of our stacks in play. Opponent flat calls and shows JdTd for the better flush.
Six months ago most players (including me) would have been getting stacked off with this kind of hand, but frequent players see so many flushes under flushes (I've had three in the past week) that it can no longer be called a cooler. The point is not how likely it is to occur; the point is, "what is opponent's range and what can he have that I can be beating?"
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Then I was driving Graham to Chilham where we planned to embark on a 5km walk. Chilham is a very pretty village. I had last been there over 30 years ago with some Kent University football and rugby types, where they quaffed much beer in the manner that university sports types do. It's still pretty, although its appeal was slightly reduced by the fact that (a) we couldn't find it, and (b) rain was coming down in torrents, interspersed with rather spectacular lightning strikes.
We had driven past the correct turning to the village, partly caused by Graham thinking that the village was on our right rather than on our left (caused by our bearing right a mile or so earlier rather than bearing left). This meant that we were driving down a narrow B Road, through surface water just this side of petrifying. That was when I saw perhaps my second fatality of the day -- a motorbike skidded onto the verge and police and ambulance waving people through a single lane of six inches of water.
The planned walk was cancelled (although we did eventually find Chilham).
However, the day was not wasted. Dinner in The Goods Shed (the former engine shed of Canterbury West station) was my idea of how a restaurant should be. Spacious, high ceilings, gorgeous weather, an almost al fresco feel. It would have been perfect had there been a canal outside the windows, rather than platform 2 of Canterbury West.
++++++
My mum appears to have sprained her ankle, so I am on double shopping duty at the moment. With no bank holidays in sight and no ordinary holidays booked (or planned, despite me still having 20 days available!) it's just a long grind ahead for a couple of months. The price war in the poker world is having the bad effect of me targeting a rather higher number of hands played per month than I have achieved previously. My track record in this is not good, although last month I did crawl to a $1,350 profit on the 26,000 hands I clocked up. That's a crap rate ($5.20 a hundred), but better than a loss.
The problem is, the marginal benefit for the "extra" hands is so good. I haven't tabulated it precisely, but I'd be surprised if at Party it was less than 5 cents a hand, while at Stars it might be about 4 cents a hand. That means that an extra 10k hands in a month nets me $500 before I even start winning. If I can manage my beginning-of-the-year EV of about eight bucks a hundred, that makes $1,300 EV for 10k hands. That's a nice hourly rate that's hard to reject provided that you can keep the mental focus to achieve it.
I really feel that I am still running bad at the moment. What's interesting is how circumspectly people are playing weak flushes these days. I had 7d5d in the big blind and got in for nothing. Flop came 8d4dJs and I led out for 3/4 of the pot. Opponent min-raised and I called. Turn came 3d and I check-called a half-pot bet. River was a black Ace and I led out for 40% of the pot. That means I (and my opponent) have only got about 20% of our stacks in play. Opponent flat calls and shows JdTd for the better flush.
Six months ago most players (including me) would have been getting stacked off with this kind of hand, but frequent players see so many flushes under flushes (I've had three in the past week) that it can no longer be called a cooler. The point is not how likely it is to occur; the point is, "what is opponent's range and what can he have that I can be beating?"
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