Relocation

I've discovered the wonders of myspace, so I'll likely be posting there from now on. Redirect your links to here peeps.

Uni fucks up again, pope still catholic

Weakest Link YTD: + £30

Ha ha ha, they've leaked some of the property 2 results! Apparently none of these are final, but I'd be quite happy with 52 right now as that was the exam that was a cock.

Crashed out of the Warwick satellite last night in about 13th, shortstacked with six on the table, find A9 UTG and jam, running into Milan's AQ and IGNH. Rush over to the £2 D/C, quickly donk off the rebuy with J2, get a couple of luckboxy outs, have someone make an awful call of a reraise with ace high to double up to comfortable and come third for £12. Annoying, because I'd have killed either of the other two at headsup play. The buyin was a freeroll seeing how I took it all out of the quiz machine anyway.

The government has banned smoking in all pubs. This is a black day for all of us. The fucking nanny state is going too far and I'm way too irritated to make a rationale diatribe about how it's all bollocks. The country's going down the shithole quicker than ever.

the whole world loves it when you're in the news

I don't normally comment on topics that have some religious bearing on them, mainly because a) such topics are so asinine and done to death they're not worth mentioning, and b) my hardline views on religion means that I couldn't give a shit about them, but this latest cartoon facade is worth mentioning, mainly because everyone's missing the point on all sides. Islam is missing the joke. Massively. Do you think that if some Saudi newspaper printed a cartoon depicting the Pope shagging a whore whilst sucking off a monkey, half of Ireland and the other two places that still take Christianity seriously would be screaming death to the east? No, they wouldn't. They'd probably write some angrily worded letters to the Times or bitch about the conflicts within their own religion (I could go on about the whole catholic/protestant situation and how pathetic it is, but it's too lame to bother). Islam's a few centuries younger than the other mainstream religions (I'd love to see from beyond the grave, in a few hundred years time, temples of Jedi Knights nuking effigys of Mel Brooks for that whole Spaceballs thing) and the Islamic world is, to some extent, a macrocosm of the whole world departed a few centuries prior to enlightenment. It's effectively the West during the Crusades, except that Islam has the nukes. If they'd been in existence back then, we'd all be dead right now and the only teachings that would be necessary would be welding for post-apocalyptic survival. So what to do? Wait for Islam to effectively grow up and get the joke. Except that we'll have had a few jihad versus stealth wars by then and all be dead. Of course, banning all organised religion is my preferred option but nobody will ever see the sense in that.

Well, after that sobering thought, some poker discussion to ponder. Namely the latest buzzword, the continuation bet. They've been going on for years but have, post-Harrington, been more in the spotlight. When to do them is the critical question. Let's assume a few constants here - you're in the early stages of a deepish stacked tournament (hence everyone's got chips to play with and there's room for fancy play) and have been on the same table as the opponent in question here. You make a standard raise with A-K off in middle position and are flat called by the cutoff, everyone else folding. The flop comes T-6-2 rainbow. Most people would argue that this is a standard place to make a continuation bet here, but let's consider some standard opponents here.

a) the rookie. The first rule of poker is not to bluff the idiots, and a continuation bet is in effect a bluff. Sure, he may have missed, but if he calls you're going to be behind and drawing to six outs. If he has nothing, he'll check. They're not going to bet as a bluff. This is a bet that is only going to lose money. Check and then decide again on the turn. If it looks safe, bet it.

b) the donk/fish. You've raised and a donk calls. You miss the flop, what to do? If you bet, the donk could easily raise as a bluff, or call with rubbish that's still ahead. Either way you'll have to slow down on the turn. Once they're in, they're in for the long haul. Check, and then take the free card or see if they bet, either fold and wait for a genuine hand to milk them, or raise them off it if you think they're the sort of donk that can lay down to a check-raise.

c) the experienced player. The problem here is that he knows what a continuation bet is and knows that it may be coming. Hence he could always raise you on pretty much any two cards, especially if you've been tricky and have slowplayed some hands, and not always value bet when possible. Harrington makes the point that you always have to vary your play, which is right, and devotes a largish chunk of the first volume to preflop hand selection in different situations, and whether to raise or fold. Most of the time he says to vary the play, even saying to smooth call aces early in unraised pots as much as 20% of the time. This choice isn't mentioned so much with relation to post flop play. If you're always making a continuation bet, the opponent will know that if you bet there's a fair chance that you've missed your hand, particularly on boards that don't appear to have hit your hand. The opposite is worse - if you don't bet, you're telling your opponent that it's likely that you've got a piece of it, purely because if you had missed, you'd make a continuation bet. A check will arouse suspicion and they'll take a free card, either to some draw, to avoid a potential check raise or to simply cut losses. The point is that here, you must pick and choose when you bet in a situation that screams out continuation bet. You must also make sure that you value bet. In this situation, the only real hand that you'd want to slowplay is trip tens - lead out with an overpair or a J-T or better. If you get raised, reraise the smaller trips and overpairs, and make a judgment call with top pair decent kicker.

The point is that a lot of the time a continuation bet won't work, either because the player won't appreciate what you're doing, or will recognise and employ a defence against a continuation bet. The trick is not to continuation bet as often and value bet more. The typical weak=strong and vice versa simply doesn't work. If you're making a bet, the opponent has to believe that you'll have some part of it often enough that he doesn't want to get tricky and try to take the pot away. Continuation bets don't work unless you value bet your hands.

Of course, we now come to an interesting almost metagame situation, whereby your opponent recognises what you're doing, and you know that. The possibilities are endless now. If your opponent hasn't a clue what a check or a bet means, you can not only continuation bet, but also slowplay. You can even fake the slowplay with a checkraise bluff if you can make this kind of play believable with a real hand as well.

The more people know about a given strategy, the less effective it becomes. You can see this in real life - just watch how different tactics in football go out of fashion. Watch how when one of the lesser teams collapse the year following a good season - it happened to Ipswich after they qualified for the UEFA Cup and then got relegated, more recently look at how Everton became exposed at the back end of last year and early on this season. I was recently discussing a strategy I was employing late in a two table sit and go, where there were three of us on roughly the same stacks (with M's of around 7) and one with twice that amount, and he wanted to know why I was continually going all in with A-x. It's simple enough - the stacks are short, the table is short, I need to double up, aces rise in value. But now he knows that I'll make moves with less than optimum cards in situations where I'm looking short. A mistake to let him know this? Not really. I'll just adapt and either wait until I have a shorter stack still and must make the move, or make the same move with a better hand and can realistically double up or stack him. Another situation - I've got A-Q in late position and raise and get one earlier limper calling me. The flop comes irrelevantly but with two of a suit and I'm checked to and I bet. I know this guy plays more or less ABC poker and if he had a real good hand, he'd have raised preflop, or would have bet out on the flop if he hit. The problem now comes that he calls. The turn is another irrelevancy and I'm checked to again. Now I'm fairly certain that I can force him off with a jam (I have him covered easily), but I know if I get called I will be behind. As it turns out he bets the river and I muck, him hitting a straight whilst also having a flush draw. I was ahead on the turn, and he tells me he'd have folded the turn if I pushed. I now know some things - he will call on a draw, but won't bet them. I also know that he will seemingly fold to pressure and will generally value bet his hands. So if he checks to me again I'll put in a bigger bet and force him out on the flop. Until I see him slowplay, that'll work fine. If he then tries to slowplay and I notice it, I'll have to think again. Two things to take away - always adapt to new information, and in non-trivial situations the obvious course of action isn't always the best one.

Exams, Super Bowl, links

Jam on the Steelers to win. This one looks like it might be high scoring and it may come down to possession which Pittsburgh ought to take, what with a decent running game. Have Parker eat up the yards early and then release the Bus. I'll be watching in bar one but with the expansion of the cupboard (and apparent removal of the projector) it might be cozy.

Exams were OK - equity was a bitch but that was to be expected, criminal seemed fine but it'll rest on how I did on the theft questions - yes, there were two questions that were rather similar so I did them both, commercial went better than expected, although I got a bit confused on the last question on nemo dat, which was an arse.

I'll quickly link to a few good internet radio stations - KEXP out of Seattle is a cracking little station (who just played my request, which is nice), and you can't beat Happy Hardcore Radio or Hardcore Radio for some proper tunes.

Poker's been alright - took down the first live 2-table of the year but have donked those winnings back, mostly in two hands in a cash game last night, 10-10 vs. A-K (all the money going in when behind) and K-Q vs. Q-9, a TP2ndK against top two special (again, all the money going in when behind). I did make some nice plays and bluffs but the +/- doesn't show that. Arsecrisps.