2006

There were 72 posts published in 2006 (this is page 3 of 8).

Poker and diminishing returns

I’ve been meaning to write this for a while, but every time I start to write it I suddenly have an upswing and I chicken out. (Un)Fortunately, I’m on a post-downswing hiatus, so I have a few days to get this right. Here’s the basic idea:

The more poker I play, the more I need to take a break, regardless of how well I’m playing.

Every time I play poker, I make several investments–money, time, attention, etc. Each player only has so much of each commodity to give. I sort of envision a poker player as a combination of all these things (and others), much like racing games where the player can choose a car based on its aggregate of several different attributes–acceleration, top speed, handling, etc. I think everyone knows that if a player is in a cash game and is playing a long session, then the longer he plays past a certain point, the poorer his performance. For some players, their performance worsens after only a few hours, while other players can play their best game for many, many hours and sometimes days.

I saw a fantastic example of this on a recent episode of High Stakes Poker on GSN. Mike Matusow had been playing for several hours and was obviously becoming very fatigued. He told the table that he could feel his play slipping and he knew it was time to quit. What did the table do? They offered him $4000 to continue playing. Mike accepted the bribe (or investment, depending on one’s perspective) and proceeded to dump about $100K, most of it to Phil Laak. Mike is a very good poker player, but he ended up stuck because he continued to invest time and money when his attention had run out.

Each player has a limit to what he can invest before his results stop reflecting his actual poker ability. A good example of this would be multi-tabling cash games online. For a long time, I was 4-tabling low-limit hold ’em games. I was earning just shy of 3BB/100 hands with a sample size of something like 12,000 hands. This is considered pretty good and I figured if I could make 3BB/100 4-tabling, why not bump it to 5 tables and make more money in less time? As it turns out, I’m simply awful if I try to 5-table. I felt rushed, stressed and generally overwhelmed. My results were terrible and I quickly dropped back to 4-tabling where I went back to showing a nice profit. Some players play 8 to 12 tables simultaneously and they show a huge hourly profit. Even for those players, their BB/100 numbers take a hit as they play more tables.

I find that I typically lose the most after I’ve won a lot. A couple weeks ago, I went on a 10-day run where I cashed in 9 of 20 tournaments and made 6 final tables and had a 267% ROI (all of these tournaments had between 180 and 2,000 entrants and cost between $4 and $55). Since then, I’ve played 11 tournaments with 0 cashes and a -100% ROI. I’ve had two near cashes, but generally haven’t even been close. I was tempted to chalk this up to normal variance, but I know that’s not the problem. The problem is that I have gotten bored and I’m having trouble focusing. I’ve invested too much time and my attention span is slipping. I’ve been opening too many pots, playing marginal hands, discounting positional disadvantages and generally getting out of line. I’ve realized that I play very good tournament poker with a big stack and I’m starting to gamble too much as I try to acquire that stack early. Subsequently, my tournament results have suffered and I’ve donked off about 15% of my winnings from my 10-day streak.

So, what’s the point? The point is that, as with other forms of gambling and investing, poker is affected by the Law of Diminishing Returns. I have a very subtle leak in my game–I’m not taking time off when I start to get bored. As I look back over my records, I can see clumps of black where I had a series of nice wins; but after most of those black clumps, there is an extended red clump where I dump off my winnings through poor play. This leak has cost me several hundred dollars and will continue costing me money until I correct it. That’s why I haven’t played in a couple days and I don’t plan on playing again until a live tournament on Friday night. I need a break to allow myself to focus and play my best game.

Geometry Wars!

Rick: “Dude, have you played XBOX 360?!”
Me: “Nope.”
Rick: “Man, there’s this really awesome game called Geometry Wars!”
…
Me: “Go on.”
Rick: “If you played this game on LSD, your head would explode.”

Amazon knows me oh so well!

I just got the following e-mail from Amazon.com:

Dear Amazon.com Customer,

We’ve noticed that customers who have purchased books by David Sedaris often purchased books by Nora Ephron. For this reason you might like to know that Nora Ephron’s newest book, I Feel Bad About My Neck: And Other Thoughts on Being a Woman, is now available . You can order your copy at a savings of 40% by following the link below.

Sincerely,

Amazon.com

I think I’m gonna’ pass on that one.

2.5 is the new 3! (follow-up)

I’ve been using the 2.5 BB standard pre-flop raise for a few weeks now and I’ve got a good idea of its benefits and drawbacks. First, the drawbacks:

Whether I can use this raise seems highly dependant on the table climate. A table full of loose/passive opponents will call too frequently, creating multi-way pots where I’m often playing out of position. This can be frustrating because these opponents’ calling ranges are typically very wide, so I’m out of position, often playing speculative hands and I have no idea what my opponents have. Of course, I’m often making raises with suited connectors and other hands that actually play well in multi-way pots, so I get paid off in a big way when I hit my hand. That being said, I’ve found that if the table is too loose, the best thing to do is revert to a standard solid game and just play good cards against these opponents.

Because I’m opening more pots, people will play back at me more often with re-raises. Here’s an example of a couple hands:

I’m in middle position and make a 2.5 BB raise with QTs. The player to my left flat-calls (he’s been doing this a lot and he’s been doing it with junk). Everyone else folds. The flop is all under cards, I c-bet half the pot, he calls. I know he has nothing, but I also have nothing. Turn is a blank. I check, he checks. River is a Queen, giving me top pair, medium kicker. I bet, he raises, I call. He showed Q9o and I took it down.

Next hand, I made a 2.5 BB raise and everyone folded.

Next hand, I made a 2.5 BB raise with AQo. Everyone folded to the BB who moved in for about five times my initial raise. I insta-called and he showed A9s.

This player was a decent player who had been playing solid poker, but he’d seen me show down a QTs a few hands earlier, then steal the blinds the previous hand, then raise again this hand. After the hand, he told me he didn’t think I was that strong. Unfortunately, he would’ve been correct pretty often. I find myself having to fold to a lot of re-raises from astute players. The good news is it’s only costing me 2.5 BB instead of 3 BB.

Astute players in the BB will often call my raise and bet out almost any flop. I think this is a combination of them noticing I’m playing a lot of hands and the good pot-odds they’re being offered to call my pre-flop raise. This reduces my opportunities to steal, but it also increases my chances of picking off their bluffs. Over time, it becomes obvious that they’re employing a sort of stop-n-go/re-steal move, which is beatable by simply calling with good hands, raising with decent hands and sometimes raising with junk.

And now the advantages:

The biggest advantage is typically on the bubble, after the antes kick in. Even the loosest players begin to tighten up as everyone starts to try and eke into the money, and this is my queue to start raising more liberally and build my stack (even when someone calls my raise, they’ll often check/fold if they miss the flop). In this situation, the 2.5 BB raise gets fantastic odds (there is a level in PokerStars tourneys where a 2.5 BB raise is actually getting paid better than even money because of the ante) and people aren’t generally concerned with the pot-odds when they decide to play or fold.

I think the most important thing I’m learning is this: I have to be able to recognize when it’s ok to raise 2.5 BB and play a lot of hands, but I also need to recognize when that style just ain’t gonna’ fly. I have to be able to change gears depending on table conditions. Yesterday, I was playing a $50+5 tournament on Party Poker and we were just about to hit the bubble when I got moved to a new table. I had an average stack and I really needed to accumulate some chips. I forced myself to tighten up (rather than just trying to steal blinds and antes right off the bat) so I could get a feel for how my new table was playing. Turns out the table was playing fast and loose and there were two or three to the flop almost every hand. Trying to raise and take it (for 2.5 BB or any other amount) just wasn’t going to work. It was frustrating, but I had to buckle down and take what the table would give me. I tightened up, made some good plays and made it down to 37th (of 538) before I finally busted (after maybe being a little aggro with 99 on the button).

A few of the advantages are inherent in the disadvantages I listed above. For instance, people will often play back at me with junk, but I will have a hand and bust them sometimes; I just have to be able to figure out when I’m ahead, so I can call, and when I’m beat, so I can let it go. Also, people will call my pre-flop raises more often because they assume I’m raising with a lot of medium-strength hands. They’re right, except that they go too far in calling with hands like Q9, J8s, etc. If I hit the flop when they do, I’ll often get paid off well if I have them dominated. Also, as I mentioned earlier, I’ll sometimes be playing hands that actually play well in a multi-way pot. When I raise in middle position with 87s, I don’t mind three or four people calling me because I won’t have any trouble dumping the hand if I miss the flop, but my implied odds against that many opponents are huge if I hit the flop hard.

All things considered, I still think the 2.5 BB standard raise is a very effective and useful strategy in many situations. The tricky part is to recognize when it’s a good situation for a smaller pre-flop raise and when a tighter game with larger pre-flop raise is in order.

Another good showing in an online MTT

I played a $5+.50 MTT on PokerStars tonight. I played well, got lucky at the right times, rarely got unlucky and generally had things go my way.

Anyway, this is my biggest cash in an online freeze-out MTT so far. Hopefully I’ll get a win soon.

PokerStars Tournament #28500040, No Limit Hold’em
Buy-In: $5.00/$0.50
1272 players
Total Prize Pool: $6360.00
Tournament started – 2006/07/28 – 20:10:00 (ET)

Dear JoshNjuice,

You finished the tournament in 5th place.
A $286.21 award has been credited to your Real Money account.

315 hands played and saw flop:
– 3 times out of 39 while in small blind (7%)
– 19 times out of 40 while in big blind (47%)
– 32 times out of 236 in other positions (13%)
– a total of 54 times out of 315 (17%)

Pots won at showdown – 19 out of 23 (82%)
Pots won without showdown – 45

Basketball team improves to a mediocre 2-4

We’ve had two more games since my last post. The first one, we led until just a few minutes left in the game, when our team basically just ran out of gas and couldn’t convert on offense. It was a very frustrating game because we outplayed the other team, but they had a big size advantage and the refs allowed them to beat up on us throughout the game. In the end, they simply wore us down and ended up winning by three (we’d led by as many as 12 in the second half).

This week, we got our second win and it felt pretty good. As with most of our games this year, we jumped out to an early lead by playing efficient offense and very good man defense. We didn’t score many points–30 on the game–but we only gave up 20 points total, eight in the first half. Personally, I had a good game on the “intangible” level, but I only scored two points. I was very tired before the game and I never really had my legs under me. I took a few three-pointers, but it didn’t take me long to realize it was going to be tough to hit them since I was so flat. I started head-faking a lot and that allowed me to dribble-penetrate into the paint and get easy looks from close-range or dish out to an open teammate. I typically chose to pass because I wasn’t having much luck with the inside shots. My only points came on a head-fake where I drove all the way to the hoop and laid it in. It took me too long to realize that I should’ve been dribbling one more time and going for a lay-up rather than pulling up to shoot. Their 2-3 zone was soft in the middle and I wasn’t taking as much as I could from it.

Anyway, we got a win and we’re up to 2-4. We can still finish the season ranked third and get a decent seed in the playoffs if we win out.

Snap back to reality: $55 tourney recap

I played a $55 tournament last night and it was pretty frustrating. We started with 6K chips and 31 people. I finished 22nd after a little more than three hours. I never got my stack up to more than 9500. What was wierd was that nobody ever had a big stack. We were all sitting around short-stacked, trying to get chips, but really just moving them around the table in equal proportion.

I’ll write up a recap of the significant hands later, but for now I’m going to play a $50 + 5 freeze-out online. My first goal today will be to get my chip stack above 150% of the starting chip stack.

I finally wrote the recap, so here it is:

This tournament’s structure is very fast. We start with 6K chips (up from 4K earlier this year) and blinds of 25/50. Blinds increase every 20 minutes according to the following schedule: 25/50, 50/100, 75/150, 100/200, 150/300, 200/400, 300/600, 400/800, 500/1000-100, 700/1400-100, etc. So, the blinds don’t make big jumps between levels, but the levels go by very quickly. To put this in perspective, the starting stack is 120 BB, but if I were to break even for the first 60 minutes, I’d be down to 30 BB, which is borderline short-stacked. I believe the proper strategy for this structure is to come out firing and try to amass a large pile of chips early, so I have a lot of ammunition when the stacks start getting short and people start tightening up.

So, the first hand of the tournament, I was UTG with 54s and brought it in for a raise to 125. Only the SB called and the flop came down 43x rainbow. I felt very good about this flop since I had paired and it was very unlikely that the flop hit his hand (although the SB is a pretty tricky, solid opponent). He checked, I bet out 100, he called. The turn was an Ace, making the board A43x rainbow. I didn’t like this card very much, but he checked to me, so I bet 250 and he check-raised to 500. Since I had a pair and a gutshot straight draw, I called figuring I had good implied odds if I made two pair or a straight on the river. The river was a Deuce, making the board A234x and giving me the second nuts. He bet out 700 (by now I’ve got him on an Ace or possibly two pair with something like A4 or A5) and I raised him to 2000. He called and I triumphantly turned over my straight as he showed his 52o, which had made a straight on the turn. We chopped the pot and the whole table had a good laugh at the two of us putting in half our chips with five high. The interesting thing about this hand as that we have played against each other many times before, so we were both “playing the player”. I think we both had the other guy on a couple big cards (probably an Ace) and we both thought we had trapped the other guy.

I didn’t know it at the time, but that was the most excitement I would see during the tourney. There really aren’t any other good hands to recap, actually. I bluffed off a quarter of my stack with 9-high on an A46 board with two clubs. I got little to no action on my few big hands (I couldn’t really figure this out since I’d shown that I was crazy enough to play 54s UTG for half my chips). I never got about 9500 chips and most of my table was around or initial 6K chips when I busted at the 300/600 level.

My last hand was a bad one as I made the right play at the worst time. A middle position player raised it to 2200 (a little more than 3.5 BB) and everyone folded to me in the SB. I looked down at AJo and moved in for about 4800 more. He thought for a long time and finally called with QQ, which held up and I was done. The reason this was such a bad play was that I made it against the tightest player in the tournament. This guy simply doesn’t play crummy cards. For him to open in middle position with me in the blind, I’d say he had at least AQs+ and pairs 99+ (I think he would limp with pairs 66 to 88). Because of the size of his raise, I put him on 99, TT, AQs or AK. It just seemed like he had a good hand, but not one that he wanted action on. In this situation, I think he would’ve folded AQs, maybe AK, 99, TT and maybe JJ to my re-raise. Unfortunately, at this stage in the tournament, I think I gave him too wide a range. I think his opening range for that bet is more like TT+, AK, which means there are less hands he would fold here (I can no longer get him to fold 99 or AQ since he’s not raising with them there). The bottom line is I made a bad play against a really tight player and I got my chips in as a 7-to-3 dog.

That about sums up the whole tournament. I never really had a big hand, but I ran into plenty of big hands (at least one set, top pair and a flush draw) and I chopped my best hand of the night (the wheel from the first hand). It seemed like my cards didn’t matter as I missed virtually every flop I saw (again, except the first hand). It just wasn’t my night. I think I might have one more chance to get enough points to win a seat to the TOC, but I’m not sure. Last I checked, 10 people get a seat and I was number 11 or 12.

Break-out night

A few months ago, I decided to start playing tourneys with smaller fields and low buy-ins to lower my variance. One of the best options out there are the PokerStars $4 + .40 180-person SNGs. They’re good because they’re cheap, limited to 180 people and they run all the time. I decided to start playing two at a time to keep from getting bored.

Well, it wasn’t long before I took 3rd place in one. Then I got stupid and took some shots at bigger tournaments and re-depleted my bankroll (I’m apparently not a very fast learner). So, last week as my bankroll neared “rock bottom”, I started buckling down and playing the small tourneys and multi-tabling SNGs again. I played 10 or 15 1-table SNGs, then I played a 1500-person, $10 tournament and cashed. Then I took a couple days off. Then last night, I played two $4.40 180-person SNGs on Stars.

About 45 minutes into the tournaments, I was doing really well. I’d gotten up to around 9K chips in one and about 4300 chips in the other (we started with 1500 chips). I was making moves, winning big pots, getting out of the way when I didn’t have the best of it, and generally playing great poker. I sent my friend the following e-mail:

“I don’t know if you’re around, but if you are and you’re bored, you may want to tune in. I’m in a serious zone right now…”

I could just tell it was going to be my night. A little more than four hours later, both tournaments had ended and my results were as follows:

You finished in 2nd place and $144 has been credited to your PokerStars account:

351 hands played and saw flop:
– 23 times out of 66 while in small blind (34%)
– 20 times out of 63 while in big blind (31%)
– 44 times out of 222 in other positions (19%)
– a total of 87 times out of 351 (24%)
Pots won at showdown – 16 out of 30 (53%)
Pots won without showdown – 79

You finished in 2nd place and $144 has been credited to your PokerStars account:

288 hands played and saw flop:
– 15 times out of 49 while in small blind (30%)
– 19 times out of 49 while in big blind (38%)
– 25 times out of 190 in other positions (13%)
– a total of 59 times out of 288 (20%)
Pots won at showdown – 15 out of 19 (78%)
Pots won without showdown – 48

No, that’s not a whole lot of money, but it is a huge ROI and that’s all I was really concerned about. I turned $8.80 into over $280 in four hours. More importantly, I played very, very good poker. I think the most important part of the tournament was when we were on the bubble. When there were about 45 people left (18 spots paid), I noticed that people were tightening up. I decided it was time to start raising and continuing to build my chip stack. Sure enough, when we made the money, I was chip leader in one tournament and 2nd in chips in the other.

In general, I was card dead at both final tables. On one table, I never had a pair and I had AK one time. On the other, I had a few big hands, but most of them were outdrawn (QQ lost to AJ, JJ lost to AJ, AK lost to K9, etc.). In spite of my crummy cards, I played good poker and made it down to heads-up in both tournaments. I played well heads-up (I felt I had a pretty good edge in both matches), but the blinds were so high that we were basically just gambling to see who won. In one match, my opponent started with a 2-to-1 chip lead and I managed to close the gap a bit although I never had any cards. I ended up busting with two over-cards and a gutshot straight draw when I semi-bluff check-raised all-in and ran into his top-pair, top-kicker (it was an 8-high board). After the tournament ended, I re-read the hand history to see if I could’ve done anything differently. The eventual winner had KK three times at the final table (that he showed) and AK a few times also (again, that he showed). He was simply catching cards and I really don’t think there was much I could have done better. In the other match, we were both very short-stacked and we got all the chips in with my AJ vs. his 77. I made trip Jacks, but he made Sevens full.

I think this was a break-out night for me. For more than four hours, I felt like I was completely in control of both tournaments. I was playing my cards well, but I was playing my opponents better. I was able to make good reads and had the courage to follow through with them in several key situations. I was raising without fear on the bubble, but also exercising good judgment when someone played back at me (which didn’t happen often). I made very good mathematical decisions and pulled the trigger on some difficult but timely bluffs.

I think a big contributor to my ability to control the tournaments was my new strategy of making 2.5 BB my standard opening raise. Ultimately, I was able to open more pots than usual, control the pot-size better and, most importantly, manipulate my opponents with minimal risk. The 2.5 BB raise seemed most effective on the bubble, where people aren’t as concerned with bet-size as they are with surviving.

I have a live $55 tournament tonight and I’m feeling very confident that I’ll do well. I’m playing to win, and I’m confident I can.

2.5 is the new 3!

DISCLAIMER: Do not attempt to read this if you don’t care about poker. In fact, even if you care a lot about poker, this will probably bore you to tears. I’ve written all this to get my general ideas on paper so I can scrutinize them and determine whether they’re sound or silly. Try reading this drivel at your own risk.

I recently changed up to a standard 2.5 BB raise, which I’m comfortable with and which I believe saves me chips in the long-run. Why? Basically, if I raise 2.5 BB, I can play more pots for the same money, and I feel that the more pots I play with the players I usually play against, the bigger my edge will be. The 2.5 BB raise is cheaper because it saves .5 BBs every time I open a pot and because it saves me 1 BB every time I make a continuation bet (c-bet), which is almost every time against typical, non-aggro players. Here’s how:

First of all, if my table will let me steal with a 2.5 BB raise, then I’m getting more bang for my buck. I’m putting in 2.5 BB to win 1.5 BB (BB plus SB), which means my play has to work about 63% of the time to break even. If I put in 3 BB to win 1.5 BB, it has to work about 67% of the time to break even. Of course, my raise won’t win the blinds nearly that often, but that’s ok because I’ll often be raising with hands that are strong enough that I don’t mind getting called. Also, when the antes kick in, I usually don’t increase my standard raise even though the starting pot is larger. With antes, a 2.5 BB raise will usually be getting close to even money pot-odds, which means it only needs to work 50% of the time to break even. In that case, it typically will work that often. This is a separate topic, but the reason I don’t increase my raise proportionally to the starting pot size is that players don’t adjust their play to the better odds I’m offering with a small raise. Players tend to start tightening up when antes kick in because they’re trying to survive. Because they’re (usually incorrectly) tightening up and not adjusting their calling range to accommodate the better pot-odds, they’re making a mistake which can be easily exploited by making many small raises to take down the pot pre-flop.

Second, it costs me less to make my “standard” sequence of bets–raise pre-flop, then make a c-bet if it’s checked to me post-flop–which I typically hope will lead to a fold on the flop. Say I raise from the button and I make it 3 BB. The BB calls, so there are now 6.5 BB in the pot. We see the flop, he checks and I make a standard c-bet of half the pot, or 3.25 BB. So far, I have invested 6.25 BB and my only goal has probably been to win what’s out there (ie, I’m not trying to build and win a big pot, I’m just trying to take down a small pot and add to my stack). Up till now, it’s unlikely that a slightly smaller or slightly larger bet size would have affected the hand. The BB probably would’ve called 3 BB just as often as he’d call 2.5 BB or even 3.5 BB because he either likes his cards or he doesn’t. So, if the same scenario plays out, only I use 2.5 BB as my standard, then I raise to 2.5 BB, he calls it, he checks the flop, I bet 2.75 BB and I’ve invested 5.25 BB to win a small pot. In fact, I’ve invested 5.25 BB to win the initial 1.5 BB offered by the blinds (after all, the hand began as a struggle for the blinds, so unless I’m trying to build a pot, every subsequent bet I make is ultimately an attempt to win the initial pot consisting only of the blinds) whereas with a 3 BB raise, I will have invested 6.25 BB to win that same 1.5 BB. Given this perspective, a 2.5 BB raise called pre-flop and followed with a post-flop c-bet of half the pot has to work about 78% of the time to break even, but a 3 BB raise with the same sequence would need to work 81% of the time.

So, all other things being equal, reducing my standard pre-flop raise from 3 BB to 2.5 BB shows a 3-4% increase in equity both pre-flop (on the initial steal attempt) and post-flop (on the subsequent c-bet) each time I make this play. This is a substantial increase in expectation at lower cost that I believe compounds over time (ie, the course of a tournament). While I think that pure steal raises and c-bets show a negative expectation, reducing the pre-flop raise amount makes these plays less negative (in business parlance, I’m talking about cost avoidance, not cost savings).

Here’s another perspective: The whole point of a tournament is to be the last one standing, to survive longer than all the other players. There are basically two ways to accomplish this–accumulate chips when possible and conserve chips when necessary. Chip accumulation typically occurs when I have a strong hand, whereas I’m trying to conserve chips on my weaker hands. It is definitely possible to accumulate small amounts of chips with weak hands (by bluffing and taking advantage of situations), but weak hands typically lead me to try and save my chips (usually by folding). Raising to 2.5 BB allows me to save many, many chips throughout the tournament as I make small bluffs (steal attempts). Here’s an example:

Of course, it’s necessary to say that attempting to steal the blinds semi-regularly is absolutely necessary in order to make sure that I get action when I have good hands. It’s also necessary to survive and conserve chips while waiting on good hands. Any good tournament player will steal the blinds as often as he is permitted because it’s a necessary part of the game. That being said, steal attempts (I’m talking about full-on bluff-raises to take the blinds) typically show a negative expectation (my example above claims that, even with a small 2.5 BB raise, the steal attempt has to work 63% of the time to break even and it is not often that I am at a table that will let me get away with stealing two out of three times I try it) and I think it’s critical, when possible, to minimize the losses incurred by trying to steal blinds.

Say my standard raise is 3 BB and there are no antes, so my raise needs to work 67% of the time to break even on a steal attempt. Let’s say it actually works 50% of the time (very generous), so half the time I make this raise, everyone will fold, and the other half of the time someone will either call or play back at me. That means 50% of the time, I’ll increase my stack by 1.5 BB and 50% of the time I’ll decrease my stack by 3 BB. That means this play shows an expectation of (.5*1.5 – .5*3) = -.75 BB each time I try it. So, if I try to steal 100 times in a tournament under these circumstances (no antes), then I will lose 75 BB. The same calculation for a standard 2.5 BB raise yields that I will only lose 50 BB in 100 steal attempts. So, by decreasing my standard opening pre-flop raise, I can save as many as 25 BB over the course of a tournament. To take that idea one step further, if I’ve saved 25 BB over the course of a tournament and my standard pre-flop raise is 2.5 BB, then I can open 10 more pots than I could if with a 3 BB standard raise. The idea that I can play more pots (usually in position) this way is really the major determining factor in my decision to change to 2.5 BB. I’ll cover that in another post.

In my next post, I talk about my flawed assumptions and problems these ideas might have in the real world. I’ll also talk about other factors that may compensate for these problems.

Tired adventures

Tired adventures

Where to begin? I guess I’ll begin in the middle (beginning at the beginning is worn out and beginning at the end is feaux ironic). Saturday afternoon, I took my car to Discount Tire to have the tires rotated. I had been holding out because the dealer wants $20 to do it and Discount does it for free. So, I was in there for about a half hour when the guy came over and told me everything was done and “You know there were scratches on your wheels before you brought it in, right?” “Sure”, I said, thinking he was talking about some curb rash I likely incurred as I bumped a curb taking a turn the other day.

I went home and decided I better have a look at the wheels, just to make sure we were talking about the same damage. It didn’t take long for me to see what he was talking about: there were gouges in three or four places on each wheel, usually between lug holes on the spokes. I did not recall that damage, so I called to talk to the manager who requested I bring it back in. I did and he had a look at it. He said he wasn’t sure how that could’ve happened, but that it looked pretty fresh because the spots had no “oxidation” yet. I agreed that it looked fresh and asked him what was to be done. He said he wasn’t sure what equipment could’ve done that, but if it was new and I couldn’t think of any other cause, then they would have my wheels refinished. During our inspection, we also found some damage to the sidewall on one of the tires. That damage I could explain.

Now back to the beginning. A few days before, I had been driving to the gym when, in an attempt to play air drums with a double-bass pedal and drive, I accidentally clipped a curb on my way into the parking lot. At the time, I didn’t think much of it, but I did look at my driver’s side wheels to make sure I hadn’t done any serious damage. I didn’t see anything on either wheel, so I assumed that only the tire had made contact with the curb and that the wheels had been spared. So, I had inspected at least two of the wheels only three days before my visit to Discount, and that’s why I was so confident that the gouges on the spokes weren’t there before said visit.

Back to the middle. So, I left Discount feeling pretty good and thinking that, even if they did mess up my wheels, at least they were taking responsibility and having them refinished on their dime. It wasn’t half an hour before my phone rang and another manager wanted to talk to me. He said he was there when they noticed the damage before they started the work and that it was definitely already there. I asked, “Well, if there was damage and you noticed it before you started the work, why didn’t you come in and ask me if I had seen that damage? If I was in that situation, I’d ask the customer first to avoid this kind of confusion.” He did some side-stepping and then continued to insist that those marks looked like “balance marks” and that, since they hadn’t balanced the wheels, they couldn’t have done that damage. He asked if the tires had been balanced before and I told him I thought they had not, but that I would call my dealer to be sure.

I phoned my dealer who informed me that the tires had been balanced in November, eight months earlier, during a regular service visit. He said that it was unlikely they had damaged the wheels and that if the guy at Discount said the damage looked fresh, then it probably was. I agreed. He also said that there was nothing they could do to help me out since someone else had handled the wheels and it’d been so long since the dealer had worked on them anyway. I told him I understood.

So, I called Discount back and talked to the first manager again and told him what the dealer said. He said that when he committed to pay for the refinished, he was under the impression that Discount had also balanced the tires and not just rotated them. I said I understood, but that I was still confident that the damage hadn’t been there before I brought the car in. I began to get frustrated as I felt he was backing off from their commitment and that, even worse, they may take no responsibility for the damage. Trying to at least get some assistance, I offered to go halfsies on the refinish and he reluctantly agreed. We set an appointment for Monday morning so I could swap wheels with some loaners and my wheels could be sent to be refinished.

Now to the end (yes, finally). On my way to Discount this morning, I noticed that my “low tire pressure” indicator was lit, and I immediately wondered whether the sidewall damage had caused a leak. I asked the Discount guy to take a look since he’d be taking the tires off to put them on the loaner wheels anyway. Sure enough, the tire had a slow leak and had to be replaced. Lucky for me, he had one in stock. He was kind enough to charge me half price for the tire and recommended I get Discount’s lifetime replacement warranty on my tires. I had considered this before since the dealership did not guarantee the tires when they sold me the car. I decided to take the warranty at $23 per tire and I wish I’d done it sooner (since it would’ve already paid for itself).

So, after going to have a tire rotation, I ended up getting all four wheels refinished, a new tire and a replacement warranty on all four tires for a total cost of $455.

Lessons learned (for those too lazy, or too smart, to read this whole stupid post):

  • Avoid air drums and other air instruments when driving around corners
  • Inspect personal property before allowing someone else to work on it (this goes for cars, houses, shoes and anything else that may or may not be damaged before or after having the work done)
  • Once a company has committed to something, don’t allow them to back down from it (like I did, which cost me about $250)
  • When buying new tires (or when buying a vehicle with new tires), get a replacement warranty on them in case you catch a nail or, I dunno’, clip a curb or something–it will be well worth it or, at worst, a small investment in your peace of mind

EDIT: I was driving to lunch on Saturday afternoon (almost three days after the tire was replaced and the wheels were re-installed) when my “low tire pressure” light came on. Of course I wasn’t too happy about this, but I thought it could be that the Texas heat had caused my tires to become over-inflated. So, I went out and bought a little tire pressure gauge and checked everything out. Turns out my front driver’s side tire was down to 16.5 psi, which is about half what it should be. I inspected the tire and saw that there was a mark on the sidewall and I suspected it could be another slow-leaking tire. I put some air in it and the light went off, so I was convinced that this was indeed the troublesome tire.

This morning (Monday), the light came on as I left for work, so I decided to swing by Discount to have them look at it. Turns out they never replaced the tire before, so they put a new one on (for real this time). Hopefully this whole tire hassle is over.