Another decade
Mar. 31st, 2013 09:59 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
peterbirksA splendid short evening last night in Guildford for Mr Brian Creese's 60th birthday. It was held at The Stoke pub's function room, which was a bit chilly to start with, but warmed up later.
Old friends in attendance were hobby people John & Lin Harrington, John and Claire Dodds, Rob Mulholland and Ken Bain; many Molinaire people from the old days, including Rod Anderson, Becky Simmons, a considerably taller son Owen than from when I last saw him, plus Malcolm Beattie (doing the disco).
We played a game of Formula One which through sheer good fortune I won (John Harrington spun off at a vital moment that would have made the race very close if he hadn't thrown a three). It's actually not a bad game, provided you are willing to play 10 lap races over three hours, so that the luck evens out. We only played three laps.
Ken Bain, Brian and Rod played a folk-bluesy set. Food was provided; drink flowed. Everyone had a good time.
My Tom Tom adventures kind of continued. I chose the M25 route there, which was probably the quickest for the time of evening, but kicks in at a stonking 55 miles. I came back through Vauxhall (ignoring Tom Tom's attempt to get me to turn right off the A3 and head for Wimbledon, Colliers Wood and, presumably, Streatham) which was a mere 35 miles, and was quite quick. TIme for trip there - 75 minutes or so. Time for trip back, about 65 minutes.
Music on the way out: "The Real Bob Dylan". On the way back, "The Sound Live At The BBC" -- a couple of concerts that I have from the early 1980s I think -- presented by Pete Drummond.
The cold remains wearying, doesn;t it? But at least the sun is out today, for the moment.
++++++++
It coming to the end of the first quarter I suppose I should come up with a poker update. All very tough these days. I am the grand sum of $350 up for the quarter, at relatively low stakes. Part of the reason for the low stakes is that I only started with about $200 on Full Tilt last November, and I have gradually built that up to nearly $800 at 10c-25c NL. I've been playing 25c-50c on Stars and have won a similar amount as on Stars (about $250 at each for the year) despite playing at the higher stakes.
The one disaster was a venture into 10c-20c 6-max on Stan James, where the "free $11" tempted me to deposit $325 for the added $325 deposit bonus.
The Merge Network is just horrible. No waiting lists, maximum of four games. The "bonus" was unachievable. I got the $12 of it, I think. I ended up about $160 down after a couple of crucifying sessions. I'm not sure if I am plus EV there. I'm not sure if there's collusion. There are anonymous tables, at which I really felt I had an advantage (you can build up a picture of the way people play very quickly) but I still couldn't win. So, either there is a fundamental flaw in my 6-max play that I can't identify (probable), and/or there is collusion going on (possible) and/or I was just running bad (TBH, unlikely).
Much of poker is playing it A LOT, so that yu get a feel for your opponents' likely ranges. There's a huge difference here between 6-max and ring. Perhaps in the former people naturally guess my range better, or perhaps I'm getting opponents' ranges wrong. I had a good look at Hold em Manager to try to nail it down, but I couldn't manage it.
BTW, I'm describing this as if I got slaughtered. I didn't. I only lost roughly what I paid in rake. But that's the equivalent of a disaster. Even in months when I "run bad" on Stars, I won't lose what I've paid in rake.
Anyway, that SJ venture cost me time and money and won't be repeated.
Elsewhere, I've been converting frequent player points into cash reasonably efficiently, although I haven't had my "deep run" in one of the tournaments yet. I'm still averaging 2.1c an FPP on Stars, which is satisfactory.
I've also been converting some bits and pieces of Full Tilt Points to tickets. The problem with FTP is that the tournaments run too slow. I only play turbos and hyper-turbos with my FPPs on Stars. On Full Tilt I have to use up too much time to convert the points into Tournament tickets. So, I'm stuck with 102,000 Full Tilt points - probably worth about a grand to two grand if I could find the time to put in the work. Perhaps when I retire.
____________________________
Old friends in attendance were hobby people John & Lin Harrington, John and Claire Dodds, Rob Mulholland and Ken Bain; many Molinaire people from the old days, including Rod Anderson, Becky Simmons, a considerably taller son Owen than from when I last saw him, plus Malcolm Beattie (doing the disco).
We played a game of Formula One which through sheer good fortune I won (John Harrington spun off at a vital moment that would have made the race very close if he hadn't thrown a three). It's actually not a bad game, provided you are willing to play 10 lap races over three hours, so that the luck evens out. We only played three laps.
Ken Bain, Brian and Rod played a folk-bluesy set. Food was provided; drink flowed. Everyone had a good time.
My Tom Tom adventures kind of continued. I chose the M25 route there, which was probably the quickest for the time of evening, but kicks in at a stonking 55 miles. I came back through Vauxhall (ignoring Tom Tom's attempt to get me to turn right off the A3 and head for Wimbledon, Colliers Wood and, presumably, Streatham) which was a mere 35 miles, and was quite quick. TIme for trip there - 75 minutes or so. Time for trip back, about 65 minutes.
Music on the way out: "The Real Bob Dylan". On the way back, "The Sound Live At The BBC" -- a couple of concerts that I have from the early 1980s I think -- presented by Pete Drummond.
The cold remains wearying, doesn;t it? But at least the sun is out today, for the moment.
++++++++
It coming to the end of the first quarter I suppose I should come up with a poker update. All very tough these days. I am the grand sum of $350 up for the quarter, at relatively low stakes. Part of the reason for the low stakes is that I only started with about $200 on Full Tilt last November, and I have gradually built that up to nearly $800 at 10c-25c NL. I've been playing 25c-50c on Stars and have won a similar amount as on Stars (about $250 at each for the year) despite playing at the higher stakes.
The one disaster was a venture into 10c-20c 6-max on Stan James, where the "free $11" tempted me to deposit $325 for the added $325 deposit bonus.
The Merge Network is just horrible. No waiting lists, maximum of four games. The "bonus" was unachievable. I got the $12 of it, I think. I ended up about $160 down after a couple of crucifying sessions. I'm not sure if I am plus EV there. I'm not sure if there's collusion. There are anonymous tables, at which I really felt I had an advantage (you can build up a picture of the way people play very quickly) but I still couldn't win. So, either there is a fundamental flaw in my 6-max play that I can't identify (probable), and/or there is collusion going on (possible) and/or I was just running bad (TBH, unlikely).
Much of poker is playing it A LOT, so that yu get a feel for your opponents' likely ranges. There's a huge difference here between 6-max and ring. Perhaps in the former people naturally guess my range better, or perhaps I'm getting opponents' ranges wrong. I had a good look at Hold em Manager to try to nail it down, but I couldn't manage it.
BTW, I'm describing this as if I got slaughtered. I didn't. I only lost roughly what I paid in rake. But that's the equivalent of a disaster. Even in months when I "run bad" on Stars, I won't lose what I've paid in rake.
Anyway, that SJ venture cost me time and money and won't be repeated.
Elsewhere, I've been converting frequent player points into cash reasonably efficiently, although I haven't had my "deep run" in one of the tournaments yet. I'm still averaging 2.1c an FPP on Stars, which is satisfactory.
I've also been converting some bits and pieces of Full Tilt Points to tickets. The problem with FTP is that the tournaments run too slow. I only play turbos and hyper-turbos with my FPPs on Stars. On Full Tilt I have to use up too much time to convert the points into Tournament tickets. So, I'm stuck with 102,000 Full Tilt points - probably worth about a grand to two grand if I could find the time to put in the work. Perhaps when I retire.
____________________________
