apropos nothing really, but many of you will remember long-time blonde GreekStein, aka Cos, aka PaperTits. We never quite knew what line he might take in the numerous blonde scandals & money affairs, but he feared no one & he "spoke his mind", to put it mildly. Fair to say he caused the Mods more than his fair share of headaches, whilst at the same time oiling the blonde wheels. In fact it was him who came up with the idea of "crowd-funding" me into the WSOP Main about 15 or more years ago.
Anyway, we try to keep in touch, not as often as either of us might prefer, but now & then, & after writing to him over the Christmas/New Year period, he replied today. His excuse was that it's hard to post on blonde on a 'phone, which is abso right, but now he's invested in a Lappie, so we may seem him on blonde a little more now.
I won't go into any personal stuff, but it seems he's sort of normalised himself, almost like a regular person, judging by this...
"I'm a calm dad now. My daughter is 8 and my son 5."
"I've just spent the last 2 years working on a passion project centred around dogs. Its a cafe, dog swimming pool, park, dog hotel, wellness clinic, pet shop and training facility all rolled into one."
Isn't that lovely? And who'd have thought that one day he'd become almost normal?
Not quite sure why, but it pleased me to bits.
ffs your reply has made me go down a bit of a blonde rabbit hold here! Apologies in advance but....
In my defence, when you're 20 years old, living in the UK, doing a job you don't like and not shagging very often (or sometimes at all!) it definitely made a good old tear up on the internet a bit more appealing. I was definitely egged on at times by some, but really never minded saying my piece. I was also sat in an office all day long during 3.5 years in and around some of blonde's busier years where I really had nothing better to do from 9-5 than get stuck in.
I don't regret a lot of it either, but i definitely regret SOME of the ways i went about it in certain cases.
I never minded standing up for what was right against guys like Rob Yong, who thought, and probably still think that their position means they can do exactly what they want. Over 10 years later, I still don't know whether I'm banned from DTD, but his actions will never sit right with me. He's definitely someone that loves and cares about poker and has done a good job of helping to grow the game. I can respect that, whether it's come with significant personal gain or not.
I am also sure that the some of the ways i ranted probably stopped certain people getting scammed by the likes of wronguns like Riverdave. Guys like him were and are bad eggs and will never change.
I don't know what happened with other guys like Richard Kellett and Mark Wright. Both clearly talented players and ahead of the game in many ways at that time but couldn't manage the ups and downs of the games maturely enough. At that age, many of us younger crop of players couldn't manage the whole thing. I personally boomed and busted many times before I headed out to Thailand and finally became a bit more responsible. I never wronged anyone else though, just shot myself in the foot many times and delayed my trajectory.
Then there were guys like Toby Lewis, who seemed to manage themselves very well in ways that most couldn't. I mean this as no slight on Toby, but he wasn't inherently a ton more capable than a lot of others around at that time. But he did tick more boxes of what was needed and kept himself together and managed to be successful. Very pleased for lads like that.
Some others I used to be much closer to. Guys like Lil Dave and Pleno. Its so lovely to read things online every now and again about how Pleno won his 897th Wcoop taking his online winnings to $11 billion and seeing lil Dave playing tritons and mega cash games.
Other guys like Blatch, i can't help but wonder every now and again what they're upto and how their lives went. I harbor no bad feelings toward anyone who got caught up in it in terms of gambling. I've seen many a good bloke make bad mistakes in this industry. I kind of have a 1 time rule for someone. If someone messes up once, holds their hands high, answers to everyone and makes their situation right, no matter how long it takes then I have no bad feeling. I'll erase it from my memory and treat them as though it never happened.
I occasionally read the story of someone like Stu Rutter and just dont want to believe that there was real malice there, just someone at a bad stage in life where they somehow got caught up in something out of desperation and other circumstances. Doesn't make it right, but after 20 years of being a gentleman in the community, they should probably be talked to with a bit more love, tried to be helped and encouraged to dust themselves off and make it right.
I even remember lesser known guys like Boldie, who i remember feeling very very disappointed when he did what he did because again, i believe he was a nice guy that got caught up in it all. Gambling gets you and it got him. But for me, the test of character was whether they would come back later down the line and say 'x, y and z was going on in my life at the time and i went missing for a while then but here i am now ready to right those wrongs'.
Then there were a few guys like Mantis. Still adamant that he was one of the most eloquent, yet entirely inherently unintelligent people on the forum. I should have just ignored him but quite enjoyed our back and forth at times - like i said, just because i had nothing better to do.
Then there was some very very good guys like Kinboshi and Bedi who i fell out with (and genuinely dont remember why!) over things here on whatever topic. Stuff like that I definitely regret, without even knowing who was right or wrong, I know that i was definitely wrong to put myself in a position to fall out with good lads.
Funny how I've just clicked on your post to say how good it was to catch up briefly, and the internet policeman has come back after 10 years! But more importantly, Blonde taught me a lot! I loved many many parts of this forum.
I made lots of very good friends here too. Stu Hopkin, Sunny Nagi, Mitch, CambridgeAlex, Celtic, Giblin, Matt, Maria etc. Most of whom I unfortunately rarely ever get to catch up with these days but really really enjoy when I do. Catching up with Mitch, Alex, Sunny etc in Thailand over the years has been great and I hope they're all crushing life.
Then theres dozens and dozens of other posters who i had varying degrees of interactions with from the likes of Eso Kral, Claypole to Longy, Paul Ho Girgy. All of these, from their great differences added really nice things to this forum and I hope all are doing well too.
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