peterbirks: (Default)
peterbirks ([personal profile] peterbirks) wrote2006-01-09 07:12 am
Entry tags:

Weird moments

A surreal instant this morning. With Saint Etienne's marvellous track "Teenage Winter" (from the album about London Tales From Turnpike House) playing on the Rio, and the sight of the BT Tower (a la the front flap of Ian McEwan's novel Saturday) in front of me, I suddenly felt an incredible love for my city. Now, considering how I spend much of my time berating the place these days, this was an unusual occurrence indeed. I guess we have the voice of Sarah Cracknell, the pleasant freshness of the morning, and the complete solitude to thank.



Although the current trend amongst journalists appears to be to calaim that the major influence on any new band was XTC (presumably indicating the age of most modern music journalists), I think that, at least in the case of Hard-Fi and, the admittedly rather longer-in-the-tooth Saint Etienne, we have to hark back to the Kinks. Blur were perhaps the first 90s band to really try to reinvent The Kinks, but Hard-Fi's track "Feltham Is Singing Out" and Saint Etienne's "concept" album Turnpike House owe more to Ray Davies than to anyone else.

Last week was perhaps the quietest I have seen London for many a year. Not only were a fair proportion of London workers still on holiday, but most of the tourists seemed to have vanished. Walking back to the train station via Leicester Square was not the normal duck and dive to avoid bumping into sky-staring groups of Japanese tour groups, European school trips or people of undefinable nationality recognizable only in that they tended to be overweight and wearing baseball caps.

But, last week, none of these groups was there. Luvverly.


++++

From the Pokerstars blog. An indication of how tournaments are going to be won (and lost) in the coming year. If you are the kind of guy who used to win lots of pots by moving all-in here, beware. These days, you are going to need the best hand.

Joe Marcal, a $33-rebuy PokerStars qualifier playing in his first major event has just won an almost uncountable pot. On a flop of K63 rainbow, Marcal check-raised Christian Grundtvig to 60,000. Grundtvig responded by moving in the rest of his formidable stack. Marcal fell into the tank, thinking for nearly five minutes before stacking, unstacking, the re-stacking his chips. He put his card protector on top of his cards and appeared as if he was going to fold. Instead, he said, "I have to call." He turned over KJ. Grundtvig, looking disgusted, turned over a pair of eights. An ace and queen on the turn and river didn't help Grundtvig. He's still alive, but now sitting on a fairly short stack.

Presumably Grundtvig will bemoan his bad luck and repeat the by now well-worn mantra of "but I got all my chips in first".

Yep, and a lot of good it did you.

Ahh London

(Anonymous) 2006-01-09 08:15 am (UTC)(link)
Well Peter, it is only fitting that the day after the religious observance of the Ephiphany, that you had one as well regarding your hometown. And thanks for not outing the fat slob tourists with baseball caps as americans.

BluffTHIS!

Re: Ahh London

[identity profile] peterbirks.livejournal.com 2006-01-09 08:27 am (UTC)(link)
Hi Bluff

I dunno, they could have been Mexicans. :-)

PJ

[identity profile] geoffchall.livejournal.com 2006-01-09 09:23 am (UTC)(link)
Well London isn't my city and a lot of the time I usually just don't get it. But sometimes I understand and it's usually the river that does it. But for every Waterloo Sunset moment you have to put up with an awful lot of dull North London suburban tat.

Interestingly I never really 'got' Manchester when I grew up there or when I go back now. But Nottingham is a place I love and will have to be surgically extracted from.

[identity profile] jellymillion.livejournal.com 2006-01-09 10:18 am (UTC)(link)
"but I got all my chips in first"

He didn't get them in soon enough. Preflop, that's the time. (Guess who's reading Kill Phil)

Get it in preflop

[identity profile] peterbirks.livejournal.com 2006-01-09 10:35 am (UTC)(link)
Actually, Grundtvig probably assumed (probably correctly) that he could outplay the guy postflop. He then (quite correctly) sensed weakness in the check-raise, and assumed that "plan A" (push the guy out with an all-in move) would work, just like it had done in the past. But, no longer. Top pair, mediocre kicker is now going to call, not fold. Hell, there'll be another tournament tomorrow.

I'm going to abandon tournaments altogether, I think (apart from those FPP thingies on Pokerstars when I have some idle time in front of the TV). The people who can play have read Harrington and the people who can't will be slavishly following Kill Phil. If tournaments didn't have high volatility before, they sure as hell will have now.

PJ

[identity profile] andy-ward-uk.livejournal.com 2006-01-09 10:47 am (UTC)(link)
How about this one :

9:48pm--We on press row are collectively confused. In what amounted to a $900,000 pot, Henrikkon raised from the cutoff and Bachar called from the button. On a flop of 752, Henriksson check-raised Zui Bachar, who moved all-in. Henriksson fell into the tank. Sharla from Poker Pages timed it at 11 full minutes. Finally, Bachar called the clock. Forty-five seconds later, Henrikkson called for another $300,000. Bachar didn't want to show his hand. "Good call," he said. When forced to show his cards, he reluctantly flipped over JJ. We around the table expected to see Henriksson turn over queens...or even top pair (maybe A7). Instead, he turned over...A6. The air was sucked out of the room. Eyes bulged out. The turn and river didn nothing to help Henrikkson. The room is still asking...A6? Henriksson now has about $150,000 in chips. Bachar has more than a million.

===============

I like hearing about all these plays. One of my weaknesses is that I overplay top pair or an overpair sometimes. The more plays like this we get, the less often I'll be wrong to do that.

I really like the way Bachar (whoever he is) played this hand by the way.

Andy.

Good Call

[identity profile] peterbirks.livejournal.com 2006-01-09 12:51 pm (UTC)(link)
Yes, well, there's "I thought he was at it" and "I thought he was at it", isn't there? Did the guy forget what his hands was, having spent so long thinking about things? I mean, did he say at the beginning of his tank-time, "if I had Ace-Seven, I'd call in an instant" and, by the end of his tank-time, convince himself that he did have Ace-Seven?"

But 11 minutes? Seriously? What is going on at these tournaments? Obviously Bachar was worried that, if he called the clock, that would make a call more likely. I think that we have to have some kind of time limit on decisions, chess clocks operated by the dealer, or somesuch. It's getting farcical.

I mean, how long would you have taken with Ace-Six to decide that you were folding? A second? Or less?

PJ

Re: Good Call

[identity profile] andy-ward-uk.livejournal.com 2006-01-09 01:51 pm (UTC)(link)
I agree. Something ought to be done about the time being taken. Personally I think there should be a maximum amount of time allowed for any decision. 5 minutes would do. At the moment players don't want to call the clock because, as you say, it might give away the strength of their hand. In addition, a lot of people seem to think it's "bad etiquette" to call a clock on someone.

I have also noticed on some DVDs a few players are saying "Raise" and then staring at their opponent for 30 seconds before announcing the amount.

Praise be that we don't have to put up with this nonsense online.

Andy.

(Anonymous) 2006-01-09 11:39 am (UTC)(link)
Have you come across the deliberately difficult to pronounce "The Sixths"? Sarah Cracknell's "Kissing Things" from Hyacinths and Thistles (also deliberate) is staggeringly lovely.

On Cracknell

[identity profile] peterbirks.livejournal.com 2006-01-09 12:46 pm (UTC)(link)
No, I haven't. I have the vast majority of Saint Etienne's work (although I am missing the critically appreciated Finisterre, which is also meant to be a fine appreciation of London). I'll keep my eye open for it.

"The Sixths" huh? I am reminded of a time at the recording of TransWorld Sport when the guy doing the commentary came into the studio, looked at the script, and said "the sixty-sixth minute!" Why the fuck do they always have to score a goal in the sixty-sixth minute! Jeez!"

PJ

Re: On Cracknell

(Anonymous) 2006-01-09 01:04 pm (UTC)(link)
It, the band, is one of the many alter-egos of Stephin Merritt, best known for "The Magnetic Fields". Hyacinths and Thistles is eleven or twelve songs written by Merritt for various "unique sounding" singers including Melanie, Bob Mould, Gary Numan, Marc Almond, Neil Hannon etc. The album also includes the quite wonderful line "Night falls like a grand piano / Outside it could be China" (admittedly this might be better with music behind it) along with a 20 minute organ outro a la Steve Reich. Got to be tempting.

And I'm sure you know the presumably apochryphal "East Fife four, Forfar five" footie result.