HIGH OCTANE Poker and the ON OFF SWITCH ?

Having spent a considerable time playing Online Poker its time to for an update to my original post Late Night Poker Online With Ninjas.

First the good news. It appears the "Short Stack Ninja" software "Bot" that regularly infested the tables appears to have disappeared. Whether this is due to direct action from the online poker company or better educated poker players learning how to combat the Bot and therefore reducing its profitability for the human controller remains unclear.

All of the traits I mentioned in my previous report remain a reality and a concern but I want to talk about a slightly longer term pattern that I have witnessed many times over and you can hear spoken of on many of the tables.

The ON - NONE - OFF Switch

We have all heard ourselves saying "..oh its one of those days.." or "...I'm just having a bad day at the office.." and of course playing online poker should be no stranger to that concept.....

However, there is definitely something artificial about having a bad or good day on these tables. The main separator between having a good or bad day is Luck. As an experienced player, we recognise when we have played like a chump and taken a few stupid risks and been punished. It happens to the best players in the world, sometimes you cant stop yourself but this is different....

Bad Beats - A Bad Beat occurs when you match your great hand up against your opponents weaker hand and the Odds say that you are expected to win that showdown. Odds of you winning normally range between just better than 50-50 to perhaps 10-1 on that you will win. Now suddenly this gives us something to measure. Luck should be random and as such, an excess of bad luck is a bad day.

Now The Point - I have identified by keeping my own records that the luck I experience on these tables comes in blocks rather than spread randomly. What I mean by this is that I experience a few days of excessive luck where I seem to make hands from nowhere, regularly hitting silly flushes or straights etc to win hands I have no right to. Then equally, it is exactly as though a switch has been thrown and this completely reverses. It becomes one stupid, almost impossible loss after another. In fact is feels very much like you are being "set up" for a fall. Every time you get a fantastic hand, your opponent produces an absolute monster.

Now this can of course happen occasionally but the issue here is that this goes on and on and on for day after day. If you continue to play you will lose lose lose. Unless you start folding pocket Aces and Kings or folding any hand unless you have the nuts your cash will drain away with one staggering blow after another.

Eventually the storm clears, the sun starts shining and the ON - NONE - OFF switch moves away from the OFF setting.

It is my belief that the software although technically not favouring any particular player and not breaking any laws is designed in a sophisticated fashion to generate excitement and interest on the tables. The effect I am talking about is the manifestation of that software design technique in practice.

I think it is important that players recognise that they are not playing poker with a standard deck of cards with their friends on a Saturday night but are instead participating in a game of "High Octane Poker" designed by a software engineer whose favorite film is The Matrix......

Car Insurance - Trips to The Post Office Not Covered ?

..Just about to click on "BUY NOW" at gocompare.com the car insurance compare website but it failed so I had to call the insurance agent direct to arrange cover.

I was shocked to find out that I would not be covered by BELL Insurance if I drove to the Post Office to take some packages and letters related to by business.

This is despite taking out Insurance described as: "Business Use By Proposer and Spouse" !

Apparently I can make as many identical trips to the post office with letters and parcels for Aunt Sally, but if I also take a package that is related to my business, then I would be breaking the conditions. Of course no problems would have arisen unless I had a terrible accident in which case a representative for the insurance company would probably be attending any inquest.

The reason explained to me by the agent was that delivering commercial goods could not be covered by the insurance policy and taking the goods to the post office constituted the first leg of the delivery process.

That made me wonder how many other people are running this particular guantlet every day without even realising it....



My personal idea of Commercial Delivery as over and above normal business use would be a van travelling around with a large quantity of Packages delivering to customers in the region/country.

However, they clearly stated no cover for any business related post office trips and cited eBay as an example. I just struggle to identify any additional risk exposure to the insurance company for such a daily trip just down the road that would merit the wish to exclude. In fact the extra risk is almost zero as the same trip will be made to the same area at approximately the same time most days anyway to collect kids from school.

Also I honestly believe there must be many people out there in the same position that haven't given this a thought and could be driving uninsured with all the potential problems that involves in the event of an incident.

Also for the record I think it is simply ill-judged and should be changed by all insurance companies immediately to differentiate between a small business taking the post to the local post office (Should be Normal Business Use) and Commercial Deliveries most of which involve vans that end up scratched and dented due to trying to deliver 80 parcels a day to addresses they struggle to find down unknown narrow lanes.



Following another attempt to argue the case, I called BELL customer services again today to continue and was told it is a grey area that really had to be decided upon as this sort of insurance request is currently routinely declined.

He then discussed the matter with more senior colleagues and they decided to refer it to the underwriters for a policy decision.

I have just received notification from them that they are now changing the interpretation so that delivery of business goods to the Post Office now does not in fact come under commercial delivery, does not even come under business cover but is now included under Social Domestic and Pleasure, with any business goods onboard covered up to the value of £100.

On the wider issue though, I also spoke also to the insurance agent of my other vehicle and they have no answer for this problem also. They are now referring to their underwriters...

Now comes the Irony - My other car is insured by the Post Office Insurance Services! So I may become disqualified by the Post Office for taking Parcels to the Post Office…!

I would definitely recommend you check with your own insurance company if you are in doubt yourself and I will get back to watching my Worzel Gummidge dvd