Vern also wrote....



Can’t be any better place to play can there??


I love it there, I really so, it's run & managed superbly imo, & none of this UKGC-inspired stuff is there fault.

I also played a few times recently at Grosvenor Coventry (Ricoh Arena or whatever it's called these days) & that's superb too. Jim McShane (77dave on blonde) ruins the Grosvenor Poker UK Estate these days & has got it nailed. 

Could someone tell me what Sof & KYC are please? It sounds like musical direction and fried chicken.

SoF = Source of Funds. i.e., they want to see if your source of funds is legit. Bit awkward if you happen to be dealing drugs or whatever. An excess of cash transactions are a big red flag I gather.

KYC = Know Your Customer. Much the same thing really. "You are gambling, where's that money coming from?"

And there's also AML which = Anti Money Laundering. Again, amounts to much the same thing. But the UKGC are increasingly frowning upon big stake cash games, as they are perfect AML camouflage.

Will you be gracing the hallowed turf this week Tikay?


I'll be playing the "little" (£300) 4 card PLO today. I swerved the big PLO thing, it was way above my standard with the likes of Osman Mustanoglu (who won it), Keith Johnson, Fat Mitch, Stato etc. Them boys would skin me alive.

I'm not even sure I should play the £300 PLO, these days they play so fast & I get taken off my feet. I'll enjoy the experience though.

I did play the 6 Max (61/207) & the Seniors (29/155) so no cashes thus far. Absolutely delighted to see Thewy win the Seniors though, especially as I managed to double him up with 30 left (24 paid) when I ran smack into his K-K, which left me with just 4 or 5 BB's.  

I won't play the NLH "Main", I'm out of my depth at the £1,500 NLH buy-in level, but I may play a sidey or two on Sunday &/or Monday. Can't play at DTD tomorrow as I've been invited to play the £240 SPT Manchester as a "Guest", with 2 bullets, so that's a gift horse I can't really miss.

Yes yes, I know, I'm truly blessed.

GL in whatever you play, & do come say Hi if you see me.

"One of the questions on the form was ‘have you ever gambled more money than you were able to afford’ I mean I assume everyone lied answering that one!"


Well yes, & there were several questions along the same lines. If a single person answered all the questions truthfully I'd be shocked.

It's box-ticking, isn't it? The Venue has to be able to say to the UKGC "yes, we took every precaution". And if they do that, the box is ticked.

You can't even play the Slots or (machine) Roulette or Blackjack unless you have passed all the tests. Before you put money in them, you have to give your fingerprint on a little pad, or scan a QR Code. That way they can keep an eye on your losses, & if they exceed whatever amount, then you get sent to the Naughty Room to do the Sof & KYC interrogation.

Not DTD's fault, we must stress. It's bad for them, it's bad for the players.

Just seems like all it will achieve is drive players to unlicensed games.

Anyway, it does not bother me, you just gotta go with it imo.

..and on a humorous note, the £2 £2 6 Card PLO game at DTD plays quite chunky, especially when straddled to £5 & then potted, but when the game starts everyone can only sit with the £250 Max.

So quite often they ALL go ALL-IN first hand, so they have a stack to play with.

Responsible Gambling, see?

Quick hint Vern - ARRIVE EARLY.

Assuming you are already signed up, &, more importantly, FULLY VERIFIED on the WSOP+App, you still have to face the problems posed by "Safer Gambling Week".

This involves a (mandatory) questionnaire with the questions pre-entered into an i-Pad.

It's not difficult, but there's only 5 or 6 i-pads & so quite a queue builds up.

Questions are basic stuff, Name, DOB, Postcode, have you ever had a gambling problem, what your job or profession is, income band, so on & so forth.

In addition, if you spend in excess of £1,000 in cash games (I'm unsure if this applies to Tournaments but I'm told it does) then you have to do a SoF & KYC check, which basically requires you to explain your source of income, & supply 3 months of Bank Statements.

None of this is DTD's fault, it'll all part of a wider UKGC purge. I gather they have already forced a Casino in Leeds to close. It's all box-ticking of course, but that's where we are at.

Incidentally, to sit in a cash game at DTD now the MAXIMUM sit-down is £250, & then £250 increments. And once you get to £1,000, then the SoF & KYC checks have to be negotiated.

If I was to bring the clubs to Nottingham next week, would anyone fancy a round on Sunday morning? Happy to go out early, as planning on making day 2 at 3pm!

I don't play golf at weekends, only Monday to Friday. Weekends are poker. 

Life remains challenging.

There are some good deals on with flights at the moment - I've booked today to go in June 26 to play the WSOP super seniors and Virgin were almost giving the flights away. 

Unforunately you're barred fom the Super Seniors.

You're obviously way too young.

Such a smoothie.

Interesting post Phil, thanks.

I would have thought it'd be jolly hard to (further) damage Mr Trump's "reputation". In effect, he has no reputation to damage, does he?

Incidentally, I gather that the piece was never broadcast or on Social Media in the USA, only the UK.

 

It's all very quiet on here. Do you expect you will play much Winter golf?

Yes, but I'll cut it down to 5 rounds a week.

Ooh, very nice, good luck Kev.

The thread made me think of long-serving sports men & women.

James Milner, now 39 years old, has played nearly 900 games.

In Darts, Phil Taylor was World Champ 16 (?) times?

In snooker, Ronnie has been near unbeatable for a quarter of a century, when not having one of his funny turns.

Those old enough (Ralph, Boo etc) will recall David Bryant in crown-green bowls, he won national championships over a 35 year timespan.

There was a Lady cyclist back in the day, Beryl Burton, some of her records were faster than the equivalent Men's records, she was dominant for a vey long time.

Any others?

Did anyone see that piece about footballer Jamie Cureton at the weekend?

He's currently 50 years old & still playing as a striker, having started his career 32 years ago with Norwich City.

Since then he's played for 32 Teams (including "dupes" & loan spells), made 1,075 appearances in 11 or 12 different Leagues, & scored 390 goals, the latest of which was on Saturday.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamie_Cureton

Bit off-beat this, but is anyone here old enough to remember Lady Isobel Barnett? I'm sure a few of you do - Ralph, Tom, boo & a few others.

She was immensely likeable despite her title & the posh way she spoke, & she was one of those folks who everyone admired & respected.

Anyway, I was reading a book & she was mentioned in passing, so I Wiki'd her & was shocked to read this...


In 1953 Barnett arrived on BBC television as one of the panel of What's My Line?, which made her a household name. She appeared on the programme for ten years but was not an original panelist, her seat having been previously occupied by Marghanita Laski.

She was regarded by audiences as elegant and witty, the epitome of the British aristocracy, although her title actually came from the fact that her solicitor husband had been knighted; the form Lady Barnett suggested she possessed a courtesy title, but she was not an aristocrat, nor had she married into the aristocracy. She also made regular appearances on the BBC radio series Any Questions, on the radio panel game Many a Slip and on the women's discussion series Petticoat Line. She was greatly in demand as an after-dinner speaker, a role into which she slipped confidently

In her last years Barnett became reclusive and eccentric. In 1980 she was found guilty of shoplifting, and fined £75 for stealing a can of tuna and a carton of cream worth 87 pence from her village grocer. This brought her briefly back into the public eye; four days later on 20 October, she was found dead at her home in Cossington, Leicestershire.

A coroner's inquest subsequently ruled that Barnett killed herself with an overdose of painkillers in her bath. During the inquest, police testified that she wore an extra spacious pocket, known as a poacher's pocket, inside her coat when she was caught stealing the groceries. Two days before her death, Lady Barnett told an interviewer she was a compulsive thief and had been shoplifting for years. Finding that Barnett, a trained physician, killed herself deliberately with an overdose of arthritis painkiller.

I never knew any of that, or if I did I had clean forgotten.

This, of course, was pre-internet days.

It's all a bit late now, but it made me feel terribly sad.