A quiet time

[peterbirks]

To the Association of Run-Off Companies annual shindig after I have finished the e-mail today. Run-off is a wonderful thing. Companies stop writing new business, but have to carry on paying off on old business. Some companies have been in run-off since the early 1980s and are still paying. Life run-offs are even weirder, because, even though they are no longer writing new business, premiums continue to come in on policies taken out in earlier years. My own Sun Life of Canada endowment is in run-off, but they will be gettin £100 a month from me for another seven years. There's a big consolidation in that field at the moment, mainly because owning a life operation in run-off eats up your capital requirements like Paradise seems to eat up system resources on your computer. Similarly, operations with cash to spend like to buy them because they reckon that they can make more out of the money being brought in (usually by sacking people and reducing costs rather than investing more astutely). On the downside, working out the real value of such operations is an actuarial nightmare that can go up and down by many millions just by shifting mortality assumptions a couple of weeks in either direction.

WH Smith have obviously had the bean counters at work. Remember when books were piled high in the window to attract you to buy them? Well, Smith's accountants clearly realized that this was a waste of capital, so they have instead put cardboard mock-ups of piles of books in their front windows. Just like those fake bookcases that you used to see in faux ancient pubs. The net effect is that it looks like shit (aesthetics not being an important factor for accountants). WH Smith is clearly a company that has utterly lost it, and I see no way back.

Listened to the Kaiser Chiefs' album Employment on the way to work (God bless the Rio Karma). Sort of Franz Ferdinand part two, was my initial impression (both of whom are clearly now part of the XTC/Gang of Four/Blur-influenced BritPop 2). However, some cracking tracks appeared later on that were more the band's own distinctive voice. Quite possibly a grower.

Poker was relatively quiet last night. Picked up $26 in a $3-$6 kill game on Ultimate, where I am working off my $200 first-deposit bonus. Then a couple of quid on Betfair. Oh, and I played some PLO on Ultimate for an hour, when virtually nothing happened. The most significant event was a fold.

I had AC TC TD 4H in MP1, and I followed a single limper. Three more limped behind me. I'm not a great fan of this hand, to be honest. I can sense trouble already.

Sure enough, the flop came QS TS 3D. It's checked to me and I have two choices I think - either to bet a rather small pot or to check and see what happens. I decide to check. The player behind me bets the pot. All others fold.

Ostensibly this is not dissimilar to the situation when I had three fours, but a whole load of other factors seem to me to be in play. Either this guy has three queens (and the rapidity with which the other players folded made me feel that he might be this kind of player!) or he has a draw -- maybe a monster draw. I chucked my trip 10s away. I think there are arguments for folding, raising or calling, but my view was that if I was winning I might still only be a 60-40 favourite, whereas if I was losing I was a massive dog with one out.

I suspect that my limp pre-flop was wrong in that this kind of hand is one to raise pre-flop. If I do this I can bet a more decent-sized pot post flop and have a much better idea of what is going on. As it is, I've (kind of) hit a flop, but I still have to walk away.

Still, for a hand that cost me 50¢, at least I got some thinking value out of it.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

From BDD.

This is a really bad fold, Pete. You can't hypothesise on an unknown player's hand from one bet. Especially in microlimits. He could have bottom trips. He could have two pair. He might have a bad draw. If you do the maths and look at a range of hands he might have its clearly EV madness to fold this. You just need to bet and then take it from there. If you are going to play this tight then PLO is not the game for you.

gl

dd

a bad fold

[peterbirks.livejournal.com]

Dave

I think that I might agree, but I'm still not absolutely sure. As you say, he might just have a bad draw. In retrospect, I wish that I had bet out. Remember that at the time I only had a matter of seconds and did not have the experience of history to tell me whether this was a positive EV situation or not. I could sit down now and work it out, but I'll take your word for it that on his range of hands, I should be happy putting in all my money.

Let's look at my thought processes when I chucked the hand away (like I say, I shouldn't have checked, but I admit that).

I kind of reckoned there was 10% chance he had QQ, and a 90% chance he had a draw. Of that 90%, let's make half of his possible hands really good draws and half of them not so good. remember, he hadn't been showing massive signs of aggression, so I thought it unlikely that he was on a "bad" draw (these players tended to check these type of hands). I suspect that you are seeing the players more of the kind that you meet than the kind I am likely to meet.

So, let's make it a range of 12 outs to 18 outs, averaging 15 (you might disagree with these figures, but I'm just enumerating what was going on in my head at an unconscious level). That gives him about 29 outs. measured against that there is a 40% chance that I boat up, which reduces it to the equivalent of 16 outs. That makes me about 63 to 37 on the good side of the equation (at 90% probability). On the bad side of the equation I am a 5% shot.

That gives me ((63x9)+(5x1))/10, which comes out at about 57.2%. So, as you say, I am probably positive EV, but it isn't a stonking winner as you imply. Since at these levels you get considerably better opportunities (such as 60% equity when you are being offered two to one, as with the other hand I mentioned) I can afford to walk away from the ones where I am "not certain" and, instead, do what I have done, which is to look at it later and think about how I will act in the future.

Iain Adams once said that he thought one of his faults in Omaha was pushing the 51% to 55% chances too hard. At the higher levels of PLO you have to, because people tend not to pay you off when you are 80% or more. At the lower levels I think that the "if in doubt, fold" attitude may reduce your long-term win-rate, but, if it also massively reduces your volatility, that does not make it the wrong move (see some other time for an essay on the "cost" of volatility!)

Now, those were roughly the things that went on inside my head in the 10 seconds or so that I had to make a decision. In retrospect, I think that I would have bet out rather than gone for a check-raise (for a start, I'm more likely to get multi-way action). Having made that cock-up, then I guess that I would flat-call and see what came on the turn.

Re: a bad fold

[jellymillion.livejournal.com]

Situations where there's a small win most of the time and a big loss occasionally are ones I'm trying to get away from: I'm pretty sure my continuing inability to spot the latter developing is a leak in my game (although probably not the biggest one of the many). I think I'm seeing more pitfalls in Hold'em than I was, at least, I haven't taken a big ring game hit lately. In Omaha, where I'm still pretty (hah - totally) clueless, I'm definitely still running from these high-vol hands, money left on the table or not. I'm not good enough to tell small +EV long-term from small minus. And short-term that can be really unpleasant.

Re: a bad fold

[(Anonymous)]

Pete - you've not included the chances that he has a made hand! He would surely bet two pair here and also bottom trips. Also lots of players online massively overestimate nut flush draws too. This shoots your EV through the roof. The danger of playing PLO in this fashion is that you end up always looking for the "monsters under the bed" and simply can't make the money you should when you should. Imagine you could look into the soul of your foe, Phil H wise, and saw that he actually had bottom trips. Your lost opportunity in that case is massive, EV wise. Now you cant do this, only Phil can :-), but you shouldnt marginalise situations unnecessarily and unfoundedly and thereby put the brakes on. The place to play tighter in PLO is preflop, not really on the flop.