Rainy

Today was one those St Andrews days where you wake up to rain on your window and it just carries on raining for the whole day.  It is one of those days when the streets are dominated by Hunter's wellington boots, Barbour jackets with the odd American still insisting on wearing aviators and flip flops.  The only good thing to come out of such terrible weather is that no-one dared visit the small post office on Pipeland road in such conditions so there was no queue and I was in an out in record time.  Definitely worth braving the storm for.

As mentioned yesterday the weekend was dominated by hockey - away in Glasgow on Saturday (6-2 win) and then home on Sunday (6-1 win) with Monday morning training yesterday (7am, dark, windy, cold).  After Sundays hockey a few of us went down to watch the climax of the Dunhill Links which was one by Robert Karlsson in a playoff on the first hole.  It was a very nice evening weather wise and a good ending to a good tournament.  I've added a few photos from Friday's play - Tim Henman, Samuel L Jackson, Colin Montgomerie and Michael Campbell.  There are also a few photos I took on Sunday morning pottering around the east side of town including one of Castlecliffe.

Last night I played in the poker soc £5 rebuy and was lucky enough to end up chopping with the final 3 for a payout of £145 which was a nice surprise.  I thought I played fairly well and standardly (bar one hand) but also got some good hands in good spots as well as winning a couple of flips.  Hands of note:

1. Double up in first level with J9 vs K2 on 9924 board 

2. Shoved J 4 2 flop with AQ, called by KJ and Queen suckout on turn

3. AA vs Q3 and 45o for a triple up just before end of rebuy period

4. Lost AK vs A7 vs 56s and KJ vs 52o

5. Won AQs vs 1010 for a big bot near the final table

6. Donked off 50% bluffing with Ace high and called by a better Ace high

7. AJ vs 88 on JJ6 flop

9. AJ vs Q10

The chop we made wasn't the best - I got £145, a guy with 50% of the chips £180 and one other with 20% of the chips £100.  To be honest I wasn't really too bothered about the exact amount of money, blinds were massive in proportion to our stack sizes so any edge I had over the two players (which was pretty substantial as they were both very bad) was negated by the fact that all the poker was being played pre flop and I wasn't in the mood for losing a 60/40 so chopping seemed like a good plan.  My last cash in PokerSoc was in first year (2005) in the five pound rebuy too when we chopped and I took home £165.  The week before that I won the £10 freezeout for £220 and was completely hooked.  At that stage in my life I had no idea how to play poker and must had been running like God!  I remember being in awe of the fourth years with their iPods and poker fleeces and poker caps.  I didn't really play much at poker soc last year or second year (online instead) but I really enjoyed last night talking about the game and just playing in a stress free environment.  

Sales have been going well - sold 25 syringe pens so only 4,975 left to go!  Cereal has also been selling at a decent rate so reasonably happy there.  I finally decided my last option today and have gone with industrial organization.  I was sold after todays lecture where we covered a really interesting topic involving game theory and Bertrand competition to show how store policies to refund the difference if a customer finds the same elsewhere isn't beneficial to the consumer but is actually a signal to other stores to keep prices fixed with no incentive to deviate.  So that was really interesting and whilst I think it is going to be a tough module, I stayed back for environmental economics afterwards and fell asleep dreaming of Mario Kart and game theory.  This evening I tried doing a few basic problems set for us but really struggled as have forgotten a lot of basic microeconomic stuff from last year so I'm going to try and refresh up on all that.  My goal is to spend about thirty minutes every morning just doing some problems before class to wake up and get my brain thinking.  Game theory is definitely something that requires a lot of practice and wont click overnight!

The highlight of my day was popping to Fisher and Donaldson to buy a fudge donut for 93p.  They sell on average between 250 and 300 of these a day and they are the most incredible thing in the world.  I highly recommend them to anyone who hasn't had one and fancies treating themselves.  The low point of my day was going to the law fair and seeing lots of lawyers in pinstriped suits and realising that yet again I am at a complete lost for what I want to do.  

Pictures attached.