Back from Turin. Italy great as usual – they only have two types of food, pizza and pasta, and they do both to perfection. Also the coffee is amazing too (is that a type of food, making it three?). After all my years in France I got to really like the espresso coffee after a meal, although to be honest the French can’t make a decent espresso at all – it’s always kinda watery and gritty. Italian coffee on the other hand is out of this world. It’s a bit weird that they all pour massive amounts of sugar into it though, can’t imagine you can taste any of the coffee (guess I’m doing it wrong).

Still, glad to be back, if only because I can understand what everyone’s saying again (mostly – Cambridge is multicultural to say the least). I’m weighing up whether to start going to Italian lessons, and also continue the Spanish course I was doing last year (off to Barcelona in a week’s time).

Pokerwise, playing better than ever but unfortunately it’s at miserable $5 stakes. BR crushed again. The weekend so far;

Even though most of this weekend I’ve been breakeven, it felt like I was in a dominating position during the games. I’d then make one hero call too many and shift the game to them and then not recover – so the best I can say is I’m playing really well 90% of the time, but that other 10% is killing me. The graph also shows me over EV which is a pretty bad sign (actually $100 under ev for the year, but whatever). So definitely not bad beats to blame – it’s all me unfortunately.

Update forgot to mention – just had a straight flush

At these stakes no-one can lay down a flush (zeebo!), and his turn lead couldn’t have been anything else (Could I lay down a 7 flush? The turn PSB was a bit expensive to call, esp as there weren’t many clubs lower than mine out there & virtually no bluffs or non-flushes in his range. So in retrospect I was probably the idiot there, although maybe calling and hoping the river will be cheap isn’t so awful). Since it was obvious he had a club, I banked on the zeebo effect and went for the shove on the river rather than a less than pot value bet. That was for the final of a 4man too, so very nice

Just pokerstoved that turn – if we assume he’s got a flush then I’ve only 38% equity. So calling $120 to win $360, that means, uh, it’s a bad call? I hate these pot odds stuff. Must be bad, surely. With his actual hand I’ve only a 5% shot on the turn, so Meteoric luckbox strikes again

uh, think I figured out the pot equity/odds thing – after he bets, my 38% equity is $91, so that’s the most I should call. So having to call $120 is bad odds. Can implied odds be factored in? If I do hit my miracle card, then we’ll be playing for stacks (as we did), but how does that work mathmatically (or can’t it without having some magic number for his calling % or FE etc)?