Man, Dat Was One Bad Beat

Unlike most poker variants, stud hi-lo can be said to have an element of skill to it, but bad beats are still rampant. The three screengrabs below are from the 01.43 (London time) tournament on PokerStars, November 14, 2020.

Our Hero was sitting out this hand, but the guy next to him had rolled up 9s. You can usually expect to take down half the pot with such a monster, especially when filling up on sixth street. Alas, he was already beaten.

On the final table but hoping to improve, guess who made a prial of 3s on fifth street not realising he was behind? Fortunately, this time the other guy had the bad beat; I hit a house, he didn’t. Try that at hold ’em!

I was busted out on a bad beat, aces against kings, the other bloke made two pair, but that wasn’t a bad finish considering.

White Privilege In Croydon

Considering so many shops and businesses are either working at reduced capacity or closed altogether, central Croydon was quite busy Saturday. Near Surrey Street, a homeless woman I have seen for many months was pitched in a doorway with all her worldly possessions. She is younger than me, probably quite a bit younger, but looks older with her rotten teeth, and as at 64 I am not in good shape, that says something.

I noticed she had a mobile phone. Well, she could hardly have a landline. She told me Crisis had given it to her. I asked her if she couldn’t get hostel accommodation or something, to which she replied the council would split them up, them being her and her husband. I asked about him, and she said he was on the other side of the road.

These two were not begging, at least not aggressively. I walked up to him and asked about their situation. Couldn’t they get housed together in some sort of apartment? He said they, meaning the council, were working on it. I asked him his name, and he said it was Phil. He was probably older than his wife but didn’t look so wretched; a beard can have that effect, and homeless men are not generally as tragic as homeless women.

Talking of the tragic, if it weren’t so tragic it would be comic that we are forever being told – on both sides of the Atlantic – about white privilege and something now called structural racism. Clearly Phil and his wife left their white privilege at, not at home, that is for certain.

Then there are the feminists who never cease reminding us about that other chimera, sexism. Earlier this year, Samira Ahmed was complaining she was paid “only” £440 for an episode of Newswatch while Jeremy Vine collected £3,000 per episode of his programme. What does that tell us about privilege? Primarily that it derives from money, though not necessarily from talent. If you have the connections you can be an unrepentant junkie and still wallow in privilege, but let’s not talk about Hunter Biden. What it does tell us about poverty and social exclusion is that it is an equal opportunity employer. 

Royal Flushes, Roundabouts And Swings

I play very little poker nowadays, and always for very small stakes, usually micro-stakes. As is apparent from the top left hand corner of each, the two screengrabs below are from pot limit Omaha hi lo games. They were played October 25 and October 29 respectively.

In the first, I had a royal flush draw but folded on the flop. If the diamond had been a 9, I might have continued; had it been a 10, queen or king, I would definitely have, but I reasoned that in the unlikely event of making a royal, I would much more likely end up winning ouly half the pot. Naturally, I was disappointed, but look what happened four days later. Had I called the flop, I would have made queens full, but look at the river card and the winning hand. Dude, what a fold! I cashed in both tournaments, taking bounties on the way, and with a bit of luck I was eleventh in the latter, busted out a few minutes short of five hours. It’s always better to be paid for your entertainment rather than pay for your education.