As a big UFC fan I have set up a Fantasy Game for UFC 191 tomorrow night. Predict the outcomes of the 5 fights on the Main Card: Who will win? By what method (KO/TKO, Submission or Decision)? In what round will the fight end? As usual, entry levels are £1, £5 and £25. If you love UFC then come and have a fun punt in the pools!

Bit thin but......

I am first and eerrrr first in the August pool of the month

Go me.....

A feat never to be repeated.

Hey well done!

but in recent times the ideal that we have some moral superiority over others is part of the problem.

I agree the actions of the Western World have probably helped escalate the problem of extremism etc. However, imo we DO have moral superiority over many parts of the world. I am talking about those countries that kill hundreds of thousands of their own people in ethnic cleansing, do not allow women to have educations, have public executions in football stadiums for women accused of adultery, and loads of other simply horrendous stuff. I am all for moral relativism, but I still believe that most western countries - whilst still being dodgy in many ways - are morally superior to many of these horrible regimes. I remember a while back it seemed to be the liberal left (of which I consider myself to be a part) who were the most ardent apologists for the 'cultural differences' of many Islamic states. Their argument was that we should not judge cultures that are different to ours - in other words if it is their culture to have, say, enforced female genital mutilation, then it would be intolerant of us to criticise them for that. Maybe it makes me intolerant - I don't think so! - but I just cannot get on board with this concept.

BTW, I see that a similar argument was being used a short time ago by right wingers in the USA about gay marriage (and other things). They were arguing that gay marriage supporters were guilty of intolerance because they were not taking into account the views of those who think it is against God's will. In other words, they are saying "you are intolerant for not tolerating my intolerance"! Scary that this is being accepted by some people as a valid argument.

[the option to re-enter]

I think the fact that the $33 Omania tourney was the only one I was playing last evening made a difference to my decision, as I'm sure if I had the option to re-enter it's a lot easier to get my chips in there.

FYP 

Haha, I appreciated it. But since it was a gentle dig at me I thought I would let others praise his efforts

I would just tell it as it is, like you have on here.

Lol, amazingly it really is just that simple. I always worry about things and overcomplicate them. Thank you.

Thanks RickBFA, I will follow your advice when writing my complaint.

Also, interested in opinions on how much I should slate the bank manager in my complaint. She was ridiculously unhelpful and dismissive. On the other hand, once I made my 'threat' to her (that I would mention her in my official complaint) she did then come through and find out the information that I had requested (albeit rather too late!). Weirdly enough I am more angry with her that she found this info out than if she had not been able to... because the fact that she did get the info for me proves that she could have done it all along, despite her protestations to the contrary. But on the other hand, that puts her in a damned if she does damned if she doesn't spot and I want to be fair to her. Mind you, I am pretty annoyed that I ended up being forced to make a 'threat' in order to get her to help me... if I had not have done this then she would not have bothered. So her attitude forced me to become one of those people who gets what they want through making threats which is not something I enjoy doing.

If you do decide to complain, I would quote the regulator's initiative called "treating customers fairly". It was a big regulatory project and there complaints team will probably realise you have some knowledge of how things work if you quote that - its clear they haven't treated you fairly and you should get something back.

I will obviously be making a complaint lol! Thanks, that is very useful advice and I will include reference to that in my complaint. I tried searching for the relevant website, and I found something from the Financial Services Authority (https://www.fca.org.uk/static/fca/documents/fsa-tcf-culture.pdf). Is this the right thing to use? It is from 2007 which seems a bit old. Do you have a more recent linkie?

In these spots being a good guesser is way more important that ranges yadayadah. OP guessed well.

Yeah my Natwest account was a premium account; cost like £15 a month or something. I thought it might help the account get kept open, but obviously it didn't.

I've finally calmed down now.

[see's]

lol if someone see's Stu today can they poke him with a stick to send him over the edge, I sense his eye is already twitching big time.

Sorry mate couldn't resist 

Lol, you're not wrong pal. In fact, I'm so close to losing it that all it would take now is a misplaced apostrophe to tip me over the edge. Oh, wait... AAAAAAGGGGGHHHHH!

[need]

Sorry about this, but I need to rant...

I went into my bank today and spoke to the manager again. All I wanted to know was the exact date on which my account was due to close. So I would know which direct debits were going to go through and which weren't and could act accordingly (i.e. prioritise which companies to phone up first etc).

She told me she was unable to help me, it was not her responsibility since it was not a 'branch issue' etc. She could do nothing more than I could do.

I just kept begging her to please help me and explained how important it was etc. It's not like I wanted some top secret information... I just wanted to know the date! Then finally I told her that I was intending to make a formal complaint to Natwest (and then the financial ombudsman if I was not satisfied) and that part of my complaint would mention the help (or lack of) that I had received from her as well as her rude and dismissive attitude. She then said that she would make some phone calls and try to find out for me, and that she would call me this afternoon.

I got the call at 4.20pm. She told me that my account was due to be closed tonight. So turns out she could find out after all, despite her repeated insistence that she couldn't! I mean, I don't want to put her in a damned if she does damned if she doesn't spot, by being annoyed that she did actually find the information out. But still... she told me 8 weeks ago that she could not/would not find out that information for me, then tried to tell me again today that she could not/would not. Yet it turns out that she was able to. If she had just tried to actually help me when I first went in to see her at the start of July there would have been no issue.

Well, at least I knew now. However, there was still the issue of what would happen to my money. I did not want to be left with no money, having to wait for a cheque to be sent out to me (no doubt after 21 working days of 'processing time' etc) and I told her I would come down now and withdraw my balance in cash. "Well, we are closing in five minutes," she said.

I rushed out to the car and drove into town as quickly as possible (I'm only a couple of minutes away from my bank). Not fast enough. When I got to the bank the doors were shut. AAAGGGHHH!! Well at least I could put my card in the hole-in-the-wall and draw out some cash... but no, as soon as I entered my PIN number a receipt spat out of the machine saying 'card retained please contact your branch'. AAAAAAAGGGGGGHHHH!

Then the door opened and someone came out! He was a Natwest employee from Sheffield who was working in the Retford branch that day. I asked him if the bank manager was still in there and he confirmed she was. I briefly explained the situation and he said he would try to get her to open up. He called the number he had for her, no response. We rang the doorbell on the front door of the bank. No answer. He stayed with me for quite a while, trying to get me in, but finally he had to go. However, he gave me his business card and said to call or email him directly tomorrow if I was not able to sort it and he would try to help me. What a legend, he did not have to do that. It doesn't take much to at least partially restore my faith in people. Off he went with my thanks.

I decided I'd wait outside the bank until the manager left for the day. It was pouring with rain and I had rushed out without a coat, so I ended up soaked to the skin. After 15 minutes and no sign of her coming out I had had enough, fucked it off and went home. Wet and cold and beyond steaming.

If Natwest had PLANNED to fuck me over, they could not have done it any better.

If I move all in v Mr multiple bullets, I can't rep it, I have to have it. The flip side is, he can rep it and I can't call.

Honrybadger's point about looking at it as several players all called Alex Goulder doesn't work. We have to look a it as several players all called Alex Goulder that we can't rep a hand against.

Btw- I saw the typo, but it was too good to correct.

Probably not a great idea to ever try make anyone fold a pair ever in a tournament.

I'm mostly joking of course. Mostly.

I do see the more general point of course, and I did make that point myself in my last post - that the ability to re-enter allows a player more freedom to make the 'best play' without pressures such as tournament life considerations putting psychological pressure on him. So I do agree that multiple re-entries give a (small) advantage to players who are able and willing to re-enter. I just think there are even stronger arguments against multiple re-entry tournaments, in particular that they make the tournament tougher/less value for ALL players, by skewing the pro/rec ratio.

Also, very good post from Lil'Dave whilst I was writing my post, and this bit is especially important IMO:

Even though in equity terms the re-entries don't really damage the format for recreational players, its very obvious that it makes it FEEL like they do - and I'd certainly feel the same when Id just been busted 16 off the money by some guy I busted out in level 7 -  which is reason enough to get rid of them imo.

Perception is often more important than reality.

So just to clear this up, is it a 'subject access request' I am asking for? Or a 'subject to access request'? I don't want to go into my bank and try to sound all hardcore and knowledgeable and then make myself look silly by calling it the wrong thing.

I strut over to the bank manager and say, "Hey you! Yes you, bank manager! I want my subject access request and I want it now!"

(Not impressed) "I don't know what one of those is sir. Perhaps you mean a subject to access request?"

However, they are not totally wrong... and there are a few ways in which a re-entry option could lead to some sort of edge for Alex. It may make Alex play with more confidence in certain spots, and thus play better poker. For example, he is in a very close spot that if he gets right he will gain a big stack but if he gets wrong he will be busted. Maybe from an EV perspective this spot calls for him to make a big hero call. But Alex is not a perfect playing poker machine, he is a human being with emotions, feelings etc. One of these emotions could be that he does not really want to bust the tournament early, especially if he has travelled to get there etc. So he might be tempted to make a cautious fold in a spot where a hero call is the correct play. To preserve his tournament life, wait for a better spot etc. This would be him playing worse poker than his absolute A-game. If he knows he is able to re-enter the tournament if he busts then he will be more likely to make the correct but high variance play. In other words, re-entry allows those with the ability to re-enter to have an advantage over those without this ability since they are able to be a bit more cold-blooded in their decision making and do not feel as many outward pressures on them.

The flip side of that is it becomes impossible to put pressure on players early doors. It used to be a workable strategy to put extreme pressure on knowing that you were never getting played back at with less than the nuts. Correct me if I'm wrong but I always understood part of poker was to try and force your opponents to make -EV decisions and the re-entry option makes that FAR more difficult. Alex is a good player so if I can put him off making the risky (but correct) hero call I want that edge!

Isn't that sort of the point I was making in the part you quoted?