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The Egyptians, Assyrians, Hittites, Ottomans, Persians, Babylonians, Greeks, Jews, Romans, Byzantines, Caliphs, Crusaders, Saladin, the Mongols and the Europeans have all at some point controlled some or all of the area we call the Middle East.
This 90 second video shows the history of the Middle East from 3000 BC to the present day.
Fascinating viewing.
So when is it correct to play a satellite for a big event? Before answering that, I'll just summarise the problems with satellites:
1) Inflexibility. If you win a ticket and can't exchange it for cash then you're commited to being in a given place at a future date. You may fall ill or have some other emergency in the mean time. What happens then? In addition note that in the UK, if you don't arrive in time to play the first hand, you are disqualified. If you have paid in cash, you'll get a refund. If you won a satellite you won't.
2) Tying up the money in the poker economy. If a card room runs satellites for an event that is far in the future, it ties up money that could otherwise be in circulation in the room's other tournaments and cash games. This can't be good for business. Of course not all that money is lost, as there are people who would play a satellite who wouldn't play a tournament or cash game with the same money. But even that extra money can't be a net gain for the core business, except in the rare situation that it generates another seat for someone who wins big in the main event and returns to the room to play with it.
3) Vulnerable to cheating. Satellites with more than one seat on offer are more vulnerable to cheating than any other form of the game. This is a tricky one to explain, as I don't really want to inform dishonest people why it's true, though it's fairly obvious once you realise that there is no difference between first and second prize. The silver lining in this cloud is that satellite finals tend to be watched and supervised closely, so that chip-passing ought to alert attention.
Before addressing the reasons why it can be correct to play in a satellite, I should make clear that I'm not addressing 'Grand Prix' events like the William Hill Grand Prix and the Grosvenor Grand Prix. These aren't satellites in the true sense, as you cannot buy in to the final with cash. However the point about the vulnerability to cheating is still true in the heat stages. It could be said, however, that someone who plays in a Grand Prx heat could just as easily play in a regular tournament of the same size and structure and use winnings to fund themselves in a big tournament of the same size and structure as the Grand Prix final. To illustrate by example, consider the Grosvenor Grand Prix. The Heats are £100+10 to enter and a seat is worth roughly £1,500 give or take a hundred. A player could just as easily enter a £100+10 competion, win £1,500 in it and then enter a £1,500 event at a future festival. This would achieve the same thing as winning a seat in the Grand Prix, with the added benefit of flexibility and reduced vulnerability to collusion.
I'm also not talking about one-table satellites. I'm less critical of them for two reasons. Firstly the collusion issue is either much less important or totally absent; I'm not sure which. Secondly they tend to be held much sooner to the event for which they are being held than multi-table satellites. If you relish the chance to play a sit'n'go with only one prize and you would have every intention of entering the main event if you won the same amount in cash obtained in some other way, I don't see anything wrong with playing a one-table satellite, particularly if it's held less than 48 hours before the main event.
So when is playing a super-satellite correct?
1) Only game in town. You may find yourself in a card room where there is nothing else to play. It's happened to me a couple of times, such as recently when I drove a friend up to play the second day of a two-day event in Luton on a weekday afternoon. In this situation, I didn't mind participating in the afternoon super-sat, as my time would otherwise have had zero value.
2) Added money, freeroll, FPP, guarantees.. There are times when money is added to the prize pool by sponsors, such as Blue Square does in the fortnight before each festival at the Victoria. That adds value. There is also nothing wrong of course in playing a freeroll or using up FPP online. You may sometimes find a satellite with a guaranteed seat where the number of runners is so low that the sponsor is forced to add money. It's fine to play in all these situations.
3) The standard of play is worse than in similarly priced tournaments.. This is perhaps the most important consideration of all. Given the nature of the satellite philosophy - the idea of turning a small stake into a very large win - it's possible that satellites attract some very poor players with big dreams. I certainly notice that there are some people who appear in the Victoria in the fortnight before every festival whom I don't see at any other time of year. I hear reports from friends who do play satellites that there is some seriously bad play in them and that many people don't grasp the increased importance of survival. I would have thought that this was obvious, but anecdotal evidence suggests that it isn't. Some people I consider decent but not spectacular tournament players do seem to reliably win seats for big events through satellites and this may support the thesis that the standard of play is far poorer.
Despite arguing against the expansion of satellites, I must confess that I have moments when I get caught up in the idea of 'getting in cheap' and going on to win a big score. I'm soon brought back to Earth when I remember that there is now no shortage of tournaments in London where sums of two to five thousand pounds can be won against a field of 25 to 60 opponents and money won in those can be used for any main event you fancy. Check out the schedules for the Sportsman (Monday+Friday), Western (Tuesday), Palm Beach (Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Sunday) and Gutshot (Saturday). I didn't understand why I had these moments of satellite daydream irrationality until I read that FT article I mentioned before. It's a common behavioural trait that people value money differently according to how it is obtained and knowing that it's irrational doesn't make the feeling go away. It merely tells us to think again.
There's a book for sale in a glass cabinet in the Vic's card room with a title I find amusing. It's called Win your way into big money hold'em tournaments. It amuses me, because I can't stop wondering how that's any different to 'Win money'. After all, if you win enough money playing poker in any of its forms, you can use it to enter a big tournament. It doesn't have to be earned in a satellite. I've had this debate with many people before and I even wrote about it for the Gutshot site.
There were times when I wanted to shout 'Money is fungible!', but it would have been no use, because it wouldn't have meant much to most people. But I came across an article on the FT website today that uses almost the exact same remark ( "Money is a fungible commodity" ). The article is worth reading, because it touches on the same illogical behaviour in consumer spending that people tell me about in poker.
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/ebe247e0-4a4b-11db-8738-0000779e2340.html
Instead of 'I'll play a big comp if I can get in cheap through a satellite, but if I won the cash I wouldn't buy the ticket with it', it's the idea that people will spend a casino cash win on a frivolous purchase, but would spend money inherited from a dead relative on something sensible. The difference derives from what the author calls the 'mental account'. Put simply: "We put a different value on money depending on the source of funds".
It may derive from some evolutionary programming in our minds, but it's illogical nonetheless. That's why I have a problem with super-sats. They seem to require the willing suspension of disbelief, rather like watching a ventriloquist with a dummy. The fun is gone if you see straight through the act. There are a few reasons why playing a satellite or super-satellite might be a good idea and I am going to give some thought to them this week. But in general, remember that money is fungible and 'getting in cheap' is a myth, particularly when there is a vibrant secondary market for tickets and your decision to play the event in question instead of selling means you've forgone the money that you could have sold the ticket for.
If you don't drive a car you may not have realised that petrol has dropped in price at the filling stations by several pence a litre in the last month. This follows similar falls in the price of crude oil
For me personally it's good news. I like to drive. I'm also pleased to learn that there's recently been a large find in the Gulf of Mexico that will increase US reserves by about 50 per cent. You'd think that everyone in the West would welcome this. But you'd be wrong, for there are some people who derive a perverse pleasure at the thought of oil running out. They account for some, though not all, of the so-called 'Peakniks' - believers in the theory of 'Peak Oil' - the idea that world oil production is peaking.
I can't see anything good in oil running out suddenly. Obviously there has to be a finite amount of oil in the world, as Earth has a finite size, but I've been hearing that oil's 30 years away from running out for about err ... 30 years now. So I'm inclined to scepticism about Peak Oil alarmism and indeed the claims of most environmentalists on most things. Their behaviour reminds me of religion more than science. They demonise their critics, deride the pursuit of material wealth and preach the imminence of misery unless their calls are heeded today.
Here is one Peak Oil believer whose faith is starting to melt away:
http://peakoil.com/fortopic23731.html
This hapless unfortunate has invested a great deal emotionally in the idea that the depletion of the Earth's resources will bring about a revolution. It's finally dawned on him that this won't happen and he's devastated. Read his paranoid rambling and see the environmentalist movement for what it is - a CULT. It's all there.
What's tragic is that there are things worth worrying about, but too many people worry about the wrong things. The changing demographic profile of Europe concerns me far more than anything that Al Gore has to say about glaciers. And it's not based on computer projections of the future; it's based on who's being born now and what they will grow up to believe in.
Over at 'Everything has a limit',
http://peterbirks.livejournal.com/162070.html#cutid1
Peter Birks explains that a "a significant minority of [these] younger male players do not want to maximize their profit. What they want to do is dominate the game. They want to be the alpha male. And, in anthropological terms, causing your "opponents" to slink away, so that you can let out a lion's roar, or whatever the young American male quivalent of this is, is the ultimate victory. But, of course, this doesn't maximize your profit. That comes not from "crushing the poker economy", but from cultivating it."
I only mention this, because the next James Bond movie is based on Bond 'crushing the poker economy' of Britain's enemies! Youtube has the trailer for Casino Royale:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fl5WHj0bZ2Q
Believe it or not, this is actually quite a faithful interpretation of the Ian Fleming novel, except that poker has been substituted for Baccarat. I know that some of the dealers at the Vic auditioned for it, though none got in. Apparently they weren't convincing enough at playing themselves, something that rather reminds me of the comment made by Arthur Freed, the producer of Brigadoon: "I went to Scotland and found nothing there that looks like Scotland".
Initial reports about the proposed poker action in the film are not encouraging, with Bond losing his money, going on the nip and then returning to win it back, and more, by hitting a back-door straight flush. I really hope that's been sent to re-write, but I fear not.
Animals.
I’ve been scooped. I was going to comment on the spate of attacks on Stingrays in Australia, pointing out that while the message will be lost on the Stingrays themselves, I like the way that Aussies have demonstrated retaliatory capacity. But Harry Hutton at Chasemeladies, www.chasemeladies.blogspot.com has done it far better than I could, and thrown in a gratuitous reference to Mark Steyn too!
http://chasemeladies.blogspot.com/2006/09/stingray-killings-may-be-irwin-revenge.html
Harry’s been on fine form lately. If you’re looking for some Miros-type humour to make up for the fact that Lord Miros hasn’t updated for months, then check him out. Please note that despite making frequent references to High Wycombe, we are not the same person. He’s far more critical of the place than I am. Any town whose municipal waste tip is named ‘High Heaven’ can’t be all bad.
Children.
I’m often amused at the way that children are held to be innocent of matters of politics. Of course they don’t have to discuss how budgets are allocated or fight over tax revenues, but they engage in plenty of machinations about the one thing they do need and have to offer – friendship. So I’m grateful to six-year old Amy at www.CatCoolamy.blogspot.com for reminding us of this, by relating the fluctuating fortunes of her various friendships at Fircroft School.
Back when she started blogging in April, her best friend was Alfie.
http://catcoolamy.blogspot.com/2006/04/fircroft-school.html
despite the awkward age difference
http://catcoolamy.blogspot.com/2006/04/alfie-and-matthew.html
Amy, Alfie and another boy named Matthew used to have fun turning into things:
http://catcoolamy.blogspot.com/2006/04/me-and-my-friends.html
But over the summer things seem to have gone wrong. Her mother has reported rude notes with unpleasant anti-Amy messages being stuck on their front door
http://happysillyfun.blogspot.com/2006/08/notes-stuck-on-our-front-door.html
and finally Amy has had to make the break. She is no longer friends with Alfie and Matthew.
http://catcoolamy.blogspot.com/2006/09/im-not-your-friend.html
I’m pleased that she’d found new friends and I wish her well in the difficult world of playground politics. If only the alliances of children were as simple and straightforward as those of the major world superpowers.
I weigh in at Stephen Bartley's blog:
http://weird-and-turning-pro.blogspot.com/2006/09/londoners.html#comments
I read a long time ago that Iraq was 62 per cent female. I wish I'd bookmarked where I read it, because when I tried to track down the statistic, I could only source it to this:
http://www.portaliraq.com/news/Conference+targets+woman-owned+businesses__671.html
which states:
"Women are 62 percent of the population and represent tremendous intellectual and human resource pool."
Has anyone got a better source? If true, then it's a shocking revelation of the horrors of the Saddam era. Even if the coalition forces have killed the number claimed in the Lancet report of 2004 (100,000), that does not in any way explain a 62 to 38 female - male ratio in a country of over 20 million people. When Mark Steyn drove around Iraq in 2003, he said that he encountered many families that were almost entirely female, so many men having been killed in the wars against Iran and Kuwait, as well as the hundreds of thousands killed in the Al Anfal campaign and the suppression of the uprising against Saddam in 1991.
I've even read it claimed that one reason why the Americans underestimated the level of post-war violence was that they believed that the high level of women relative to men in Iraq would have a pacifying effect.
I know that I have at least one Iraqi reader. Would any care to comment on the gender split, please?
I'm not one for censorship, but there are times when it's obvious that the media can change events merely by being around to report them. This week, two kidnapped Fox News journalists were freed by the Islamic militant group that had captured them in Gaza. One of them said on his release:
"I just hope this never scares a single journalist away from coming to Gaza to cover this story because the Palestinian people are very beautiful, kind-hearted, loving people who the world need to know more about and so do not be discouraged. Come and tell the story. It's a wonderful story."
But that got me to thinking - what if journalists did refuse to go to Gaza? I think it would be a positive thing. If Palestinians really are the "very beautiful, kind-hearted, loving people who the world need to know more about" then is it too much to ask that they don't kidnap the journalists who are going to tell their version of events? I think a media boycott would benefit Gazans and journalists worldwide. Perhaps if there had been a temporary media boycott a few years ago, these two wouldn't have been kidnapped in the first place.
On a connected theme, I was struck by a comment in the middle of this report about a trip to southern Israel, near the border with Gaza:
http://www.michaeltotten.com/archives/001251.html
Key Quote:
“Lots of Qassams hit this city,” Shika said. “Most people killed by the Qassams live here.”
“How many rockets are hitting the city right now?” I said.
“Not as many today,” he said. “Because of the war in Lebanon.”
“What does Lebanon have to do with it?” I said.
“All the journalists forgot about us during the Lebanon war. So the terrorists are waiting for the media to come back before firing rockets again. They don’t want to waste those they have.”
“That can’t be the only reason,” I said. “The IDF has been active in Gaza this entire time. Surely that has something to do with it.”
“Yes,” he said. “Also because of the IDF.”
Later two more Israelis repeated what Shika said about Hamas and Islamic Jihad cooling their rocket launchers while the media’s attention was elsewhere. I haven’t heard any official confirmation from either side that it’s true.
(Emphasis mine)
I realise this is merely anecdotal, but it makes a lot of sense. Terrorists see the western media as a front in their strategy.
I'm playing the Gutshot Series of Poker today. It's the best structured mid-price tournament that there has ever been on British soil. If you have the time and £330 is in your price range, you really must play it. Gutshot are to be commended for putting this on.
Talking of NL freezeouts, I'm reminded that I played a £100 one at the Western a couple of weeks ago. I'd heard that there was to be a £3,000 guarantee and went hoping that only 15 people would show up! Alas it was not to be. The tournament attracted 57 runners, rougly half of whom had 'qualified' at a pub called the Captain Morgan. As the guarantee was in no threat of being invoked, the Western topped up the pool by £300 to make it a round £6,000. Nice one.
A good turnout.
As the event was well structured and well run, it was annoying that I got very unlucky and was knocked out on the bubble by none other than the eventual winner, Mark Strahan, author of a 25,000-copy selling poker book, which tragically I've never found time to read. Mark has inaccurately described the hand on his website, so I thought I would put this one to you. I'm happy with how I've played it - I don't think there's much special about what I've done. Instead I'm interested in whether readers think that Mark's played this wrong.
His account:
http://ukpokerukpoker.blogspot.com/2006/08/aug-8th-10010-nl-holdem-western-club.html
We were down to 10 players left, with only nine to go through to the final. Someone had vetoed the idea of a 10th prize and I was fine with that. Playing two tables of five each, I'm on the big blind with Mark on my right in the small blind (not 'late position' as he describes) when to my surprise I see two people limp in early position for 1200. Mark made up for the 600 small blind and I looked down to see AA. It's very rare to have people limping in pots at this stage of the tournament. It tends to be a 'pump or dump' moment. But there was quite a lot of play in the game thanks to the generous chip allocation of 5,000 points and a reasonable clock interval of 30 minutes. I think the average stack was about 24,000 at this stage and I had 16,500 before posting the BB.
Upon finding the aces, I raised 7,000. There was 4,800 of blinds in the middle. It's a bit more than I would normally raise to win this, but I thought it would thin the field and I might get action from one of the early position limpers regardless of the amount if they were trapping with KK or QQ.
The limpers folded and then to my surprise, Mark asked me 'How much more have you got, Dave?' I replied ''8,300' and he said 'I'm all in'. I said 'So am I'.
Mark showed JJ and won when a jack hit on the turn. This was frustrating of course. I wouldn't have minded so much if Mark had raised and then called my re-raise. That would be a fairly common blind skirmish encounter. What I couldn't understand was how his hand was worth 600 more one minute and 17,000 the next. How had it gone up in value so much? His unsolicited answer was 'I thought you were at it'.
Hmmm. I think that answer says more about how Mark plays or thinks most others play than it says about me. That's a clue by the way to many people's thinking. They reckon that others think like them. So the way they interpret someone else's action is through the prism of how they would play the hand in the same circumstances. That's one way you can get a line of someone's play without being in a hand against them.
What interests me more is whether Mark's call before the flop made sense. Obviously his hand is not to be folded, but shouldn't it be raise? I think it's a clear raising situation. You should like JJ, but not want to play them four handed out of position if possible. But at least one well respected player has told me that he agreed with what Mark did, but added that instead of re-raising he'd have flat called the 7,000 and then led into me on the flop regardless of what fell as a stop'n'go. (See comments to find out who)
I'm dubious about this I have to say. If you don't like raising with JJ because you fear that the early position limpers might have the hand dominiated, surely my raise should be feared because I've shown that I don't fear them? Unless you think I'm just some wild reckless gambler that is.
The worthy winner!
What are Germans to make of the news that two young men, at least one of whom had middle-eastern connections, attempted to explode bombs on trains packed with commuters? In contrast to Britain, where terrorist apologists can be relied upon to quickly rustle up a few excuses about various provocations, it's not obvious what Germans could do differently. They have no troops in Iraq, no troops in Afghanistan, no involvement in Algeria, no involvement in Chechnya, no ban on headscarves and didn't publish cartoons about Mohammed!
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/5267920.stm
Despite trying hard to be good infidels, they are still targets.
In recent years I've become fairly convinced that carbohydrate and not fat is the real enemy the west faces if it wishes to combat the epidemic of obesity. In my own case, I find I can lose weight without feeling too hungry if I focus on meals that are based on meat, fish, vegatables and salad. Several times a week I go to a local 'greasy spoon' for a fry up breakfast and I find it keeps me full for most of the day. In fact the effect is so strong that I usually don't feel like eating again for seven or eight hours. That never happens if I eat the sort of Bran/Muesli swill that the 'experts' recommend. The result with those is that my body is screaming for more food in under three hours, often sooner.
On a whim today I did a google search for 'carbohydate addict' to see whether anyone thinks such a person exists and discovered this quiz:
http://www.carbohydrateaddicts.com/caquiz.html
Answering the questions on the assumption that I eat some carbohyrdate in my diet, I find that I score almost 100 per cent! So that's me then! Luckily I've been off the carbs for a couple of weeks now and I've lost about six or seven pounds since then. Clothes are starting to fit more comfortably, which is nice.
Meanwhile, here's an interesting critique of the film 'Supersize Me' from a doctor who promotes a low-carb, high protein diet -
http://www.proteinpower.com/drmike/archives/2006/08/appearing_in_th_1.html
I bought Private Eye this morning and discovered an ad at the back in the 'Eye Bet' section of the classifieds (page 37). It read 'Are you a loser? online poker help. www.get-even.info '
Well obviously I couldn't resist checking the site out. Of course it's a load of bollocks. I feel confident saying that, because it contradicts itself massively. On the intro page, it assures you that it's possible for online players to purchase software to help them cheat. But if you click on the link titled "How to make a six figure income playing online poker" you get to a page written by a 'Danish' online professional, who speaks his mind about online poker on the clickable link (in a mid-West American accent) and he firmly dismisses claims that online programmes can assist players. What a difference a page can make!
I'd love to say that you can take his word for it, but given that he also claims that he can teach you to: 'Win more pots day after day and skyrocket your earnings' and how to 'Never lose to a gambler with lucky cards again', that may not be possible.
PS - the sound file in which 'Kim Birch' claims that online poker rigging software doesn't work is near the bottom of the page, next to his photo and not the one at the top. By the way, does anyone else think that it's two different voices?
