Trying to convert Sklansky dollars in Spain

Spain hasn't been the happiest of hunting grounds for me. The first time I went there Mick Mccloskey dragged me all over a superstore in search of the world's cheapest bottled water. I spent most of my second visit in bed with some sort of Spanish superbug and hearing sad news from home. Visit number 3 was marred by the worst dealer error of my career so I wasn't looking forward to visit number 4 to play Barcelona EMOP all that much. As it was I spent most of the week busting tournaments in annoying fashion and the rest of it struggling with yet another Spanish superbug to the accompaniment of David Lappin complaining about stuff.

My main event was a bit of a non event. I'd drifted back to a little under starting stack when I picked up my first hand several hours into day one. I threebet queens from the small blind over an early raiser. That put enough of my stack in to ensure the rest was going in on most flops. The jt9 flop that was tabled was one such flop and I found myself up against jto and didn't get there.

Sklansky's fundamental theorem of poker states that every time your opponent makes a mistake you profit in theoretical Sklansky dollars. This is a theoretical currency because in practise the deck will decide in each individual case whether a player profits or not from mistakes.  Probability theory tells us that in the long run over a large enough sample size the amount of Sklansky dollars we accrue and our actual profit will converge. My opponent's preflop call is a clear mistake in theory but on this occasion my Sklansky dollars didn't convert. A while ago Lappin did me a favour that made me Sklansky dollars but cost me actual money. When he tried to claim credit for this I told him I'd buy him a Sklansky coffee, so after my bustout I went off to see if they have that brand of coffee  in Spain. Apparently not.

My side event campaign also floundered when a Sklansky cheque bounced in my face. More on that in my next blog where I'll also talk about the importance of paying attention to live reads and opponent profiles when playing live.

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