Another good blog , thanks for sharing Marky. I hope you are having a great time .

Thanks for the updates Tony. I looked for reward to reading them each day.

Was that your last tournament of the trip? I hope not or you at least keep us entertained for the rest of the series on your blog

Enjoy the rest of the series

Thanks Craig.

Think I've finished playing, though I'm being tempted by various folks to play a Min Event Mega Sat tomorrow or Sunday morning. We'll see.

Hopefully, in between work, I'll keep the Diary going as long as I am here.

I moved hotel today, from Gold Coast, where I moved to after Gill went home, back to The Rio, as it is so much more convenient for work. What a palaver moving hotels is.

I can see why you moved hotels now Tony. The lack of light bulbs were forcing you to dress in the dark by the looks of it

Thanks for the updates Tony. I looked for reward to reading them each day.

Was that your last tournament of the trip? I hope not or you at least keep us entertained for the rest of the series on your blog

Enjoy the rest of the series

The winner of this little 4 way coup was Marc Convey, who many of you will remember as a Gutshot Updater for many years.

 

Four King nice

Harry Demetriou

Absolutely fantastic blogging Tom. Please keep the stories coming as you make the reader feel like they are part of the adventure .

Sounds like an amazing road trip , thanks again for sharing

Colin Kennedy.

If I'm not mistaken, Ralphy boy used to be quite well acquainted with Colin.

Not seen him for a good few years now. Hope he is OK.

Colin died about 18 months ago Tony - he'd had a few health problems but it still came as a bit of a shock.

I was hoping one of the Irish guys would write a decent obituary as he had led a very interesting life but couldn't find anything - he was the youngest Cambridge under-graduate of his era at seventeen, was Irish chess champion on several occasions, a top class bridge player, an excellent raconteur with a wicked dry sense of humour, renowned drinker and bon vivant, and of course a tremendous poker player who was a fixture at The Vic for several decades.

He genuinely was one of the good guys and I miss his company for a few glasses of wine and dinner on my occasional visits to London.

I hope this link works but Colin Kennedy is mentioned in passing in the memoir of David Spanier, as he was one of the regulars at the En Passant cafe/chess club in London (which had a poker game running upstairs).

I'd never heard of this book before but from a quick scan it looks like it would be a good read for London poker players of a certain vintage.

https://books.google.ie/books?id=KH2RgiNg98QC&pg=PA15&lpg=PA15&dq=Colin+Kennedy++chess&source=bl&ots=3E0piyodyB&sig=w2qeKs9av9w_qQ8_PtNKFOtZBb4&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiYxqb1nODUAhVLI8AKHXcECpIQ6AEILTAC#v=onepage&q=Colin%20Kennedy%20%20chess&f=false

I used to be a regular in Ted Isles' games way back when but the En Passant was a little before my time.

I believe Colin was a good friend of Tony Boltons . That's a guy I haven't seen for years and wonder how he is doing

Tony moved out of London to Norfolk around ten years ago iirc - I heard he still pops into The Vic and plays the big PLO game very occasionally although I've not seen him in yonks now.

Are you playing any golf in China, and when are you coming to Nottingham for that game with me Craig? You could combine it with poker at DTD.

Hi Ralph
Yes I play golf in China albeit not as much as I would like to  as it quite expensive .
I am  fortunate as I have made friends with a few PGA pros here who help me out with my game but I really don't practice enough.

Yes we really need to get that game of golf together we have talked about for a few years now, I intend on buying some new irons when I return so could be a good way to ttrythem out .

Colin Kennedy.

If I'm not mistaken, Ralphy boy used to be quite well acquainted with Colin.

Not seen him for a good few years now. Hope he is OK.

Colin died about 18 months ago Tony - he'd had a few health problems but it still came as a bit of a shock.

I was hoping one of the Irish guys would write a decent obituary as he had led a very interesting life but couldn't find anything - he was the youngest Cambridge under-graduate of his era at seventeen, was Irish chess champion on several occasions, a top class bridge player, an excellent raconteur with a wicked dry sense of humour, renowned drinker and bon vivant, and of course a tremendous poker player who was a fixture at The Vic for several decades.

He genuinely was one of the good guys and I miss his company for a few glasses of wine and dinner on my occasional visits to London.

I hope this link works but Colin Kennedy is mentioned in passing in the memoir of David Spanier, as he was one of the regulars at the En Passant cafe/chess club in London (which had a poker game running upstairs).

I'd never heard of this book before but from a quick scan it looks like it would be a good read for London poker players of a certain vintage.

https://books.google.ie/books?id=KH2RgiNg98QC&pg=PA15&lpg=PA15&dq=Colin+Kennedy++chess&source=bl&ots=3E0piyodyB&sig=w2qeKs9av9w_qQ8_PtNKFOtZBb4&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiYxqb1nODUAhVLI8AKHXcECpIQ6AEILTAC#v=onepage&q=Colin%20Kennedy%20%20chess&f=false

I used to be a regular in Ted Isles' games way back when but the En Passant was a little before my time.

I believe Colin was a good friend of Tony Boltons . That's a guy I haven't seen for years and wonder how he is doing

Thank you very much guys , especially Marky , for doing these updates.

Trust me they are very much appreciated by a lot of people .

Especially as it is hard for me to access the official updating sites.  i'm lazy

Have a great time and rest when you finally get out to Vegas

Haha. It's actually the great firewall of China mate

Thank you very much guys , especially Marky , for doing these updates.

Trust me they are very much appreciated by a lot of people .

Especially as it is hard for me to access the official updating sites.

Have a great time and rest when you finally get out to Vegas

The very best of luck Tony.
 Enjoying your Vegas updates as usual

Thanks Craig.

You still in China? How's it going?

Hi Tony

Yes I am still in China. It has been 4 years now and still enjoying it as much as the first day I arrived .

Thanks again for the updates and Vegas blogging , it really means a lot to the people who can't make it there .

Good luck for the rest of your trip

Good to hear Craig. If I am not mistaken, before China it was India? (Goa?).

Can't be easy to set up life in a new country & make a success of it. GreekStein, Amatay, SkolSuper & a few others did it, but they are rare exceptions. I'd love to set up home in the USA, but what with age, Green Cards etc, I don't think it's really possible at this point in life.

Do you ever hear, or know of, how the old Walsall regulars are getting on these days? Ash Pervaiz, Micky Wernick, (who was unwell, but I heard he is better now?), those two Asian brothers, Dani the poker room Manager, Paul (?) the Casino Manager (portly chap), the old fella, "Pete" who used to be a safebreaker, & was mates with bald Paul, Theo?

Hi Tony

Yes that's correct it was Goa , India before China. I helped set up the first dedicated poker room there almost 8years to the day .
I felt very proud the other day when Aditya Sushant won Indias first ever WSOP bracelet. I remember when he first started coming into the card room
and had just started learning to play the game.

I also had a short stint in Florida which I enjoyed immensely.

I do pop into Walsall casino when I go back for a vacation to catch up with Pete Bandit , Essy and a few others . I haven't seen the others you mention in a few years unfortunately.

Theo and safe cracker Pete both passed away some time ago now. Both great characters for their own reasons .

I do miss the old Walsall days I had so much fun, sadly a lot has changed on my recent visits

The very best of luck Tony.
 Enjoying your Vegas updates as usual

Thanks Craig.

You still in China? How's it going?

Hi Tony

Yes I am still in China. It has been 4 years now and still enjoying it as much as the first day I arrived .

Thanks again for the updates and Vegas blogging , it really means a lot to the people who can't make it there .

Good luck for the rest of your trip

The very best of luck Tony.
 Enjoying your Vegas updates as usual

Have started playing football again now 2x a week from a site called "footyaddicts" it's pretty good and standard is actually pretty decent overall.

I literally haven't played consistently for years and years, but playing recently has made me miss it. I'm a little bit too vocal and aggressive at times though, I just really hate seeing inefficient strategy. For some reason in amateur 5aside and especially 7aside everybody retreats once the ball scores/goes for a goal kick when clearly the best strategy is all to press high up the pitch man for man. The second most annoying thing is people trying long passes when everybodies fitness levels are relatively low. People struggle to play the full 60-90 minutes so giving the ball away is really the worst thing possible. When I'm managing a team I'm very very adamant about exactly what strategy I want the team to follow and can make us do it pretty well, but at these friendly recreational games it's tough to really have a go at somebody, and tougher to have a go at the whole team all at once. I'm sure most people can just let it go and concentrate of fitness and their own passing completion, trying to score a hat trick or whatever, but it really really really infuriates me to see such inefficient play when it's really easy to fix.

Anyway, technically I feel really good, when there's good players in my team I especially do well but the goal is to be as fit ASAP where I'm just at the point of clearly being the best player in any kind of amateur recreational non Organised game.

Football career growing up was kind of strange, I was captain of the county team and we played to a pretty high standard, I was getting really good at one point, it's kind of strange but when I started travelling to Southampton and training and playing with people like Bale, Walcott and Lallana, that whole year I really deterioated as a player. The first time I went down there was 40 people or so and they would choose 11 people at the end of the training camp to be in the squad to play against Wimbledon (now no long a club, but they were basically all 6ft+ black kids from london) I got a slot in the first 11 as a number 7 and I remember very clearly that 7 and 11 had to stand over every set piece together and 11 was Gareth Bale. I thought he was not good at all, he was slow, skinny, but for some reason they loved him. After that I had to do some exams so couldn't go back down for a couple of months. In those months I literally did nothing at all to improve myself, nothing to get better, I just thought I'd done great and I was going to be a footballer now. Everybody knows the story of Bale, he basically locked himself in the gym, became an absolute beast and is now the most expensive player in the worldz

I was one of the best long distance runners in the country for my age, winning gold medals at 1500 against guys who's legs were literally twice as long as mine. One day in around this period of time I just decided that I was going to stop doing it because I couldn't be bothered anymore. I had a running coach as Gosforth Harriers who randomly used to call me Santa Claus Infront of everybody, I was short and stocky and they were really tall and gangly and he hated that I beat them. I was running round the track at 3000m one day and literally give up in the race and thought wtf am I doing this for, all my friends were drinking the night before and having a great time and I'm running around a track in circles??!

 We played a game against Liverpool in the national semi final and they had a guy called Charlie Barnett, he was 16 and apparabtly worth £5m and was destined to be the next Alan Shearer. I remember at kick off we were both captains, my job was to not focus on playing technically at all, just stay on his toes and not let him play, following him everywhere. I hardly had a kick and they thrashed us 5-0

Here's a hilarious picture of me as a spotty 15 year old kid from front page of Evening Chronicle

https://www.google.hu/amp/www.chroniclelive.co.uk/news/north-east-news/hes-my-shearo-1602686.amp

They got my age and position wrong and they did a huge photo shoot of my sliding tackling my dad in the park which was very weird. They ended up losing the photos the next day and wanting us to do it again and was like no chance and just did this photo.

After going back to Southampton I remember very clearly one night being in the players house, Adam Lallana and Lloyd James were getting naked for some local girl on MSN!! My dad text me saying Malcolm Elias (one of the best scouts the country has seen) text him and said the coaches couldn't understand why I couldn't run anymore. I remember sinking heart feeling like if fucked it up. When it came round to the time of them choosing which guys would get the professional contracts it wasn't surprising the guys who worked hard such as Lallana, Nathan Dyer, Dextor Blackstock and Gareth Bale were the ones who got them. Football is imo 15% skill, 15% luck and 70% hard work. I had the skill, I had the luck of getting a break through but sadly didn't put in the hard work and allowed myself to be the equivalent of an American MTT reg. I remember Jordan Henderson was my age and playing for Sunderland. We played them 3-4x/season, we both played centre mid and he was really bad at the time, nobody could understand why he was at Sunderland and I remember people saying he just works super hard and the coaches love him.

Anyway, I was told it was GG I and I went to Hartlepool on trial. I remember very vividly on the first week that the players were saying there was 3 spots left (at 16-17 there is 4 people who get "contracts" and it's Gg for everybody else) because I had one locked up. I remember how I played each day and I was back to feeling really good. The manager told me to bring my parents tomorrow for a meeting. We rock up and he told me that he thought I was a good player but they were looking more for Patrick Vieras than Patrick Leonard's and again was Gg) at that point I just gave up dreams of being a professional player and never played properly serious since. I was paid to play till around 21 for semi professional team who were really good to me and looked after me. In those leagues at that time ex pros or older guys would kick lumps out of younger guys and then I left for Spain and PokerStrategy and never played a proper serious match since (roughly 7 years ago). I basically just play 5aside for the first time in 6-8 months and be completely fucked and tell myself I'm going to get fit, but let some reason take over, travelling to play poker especially made it very tough I think.

I have mentioned it previously, but I feel like a lot of my obsession for being good at poker is because of my failures in football, and perhaps one of the reasons for my goal of running a football club or being a manager of a football club is to not leave something in my life as a failure.

What a fascinating insight into your life. Thanks for sharing I really enjoyed reading that

Good news that you are ok Tony. Get well soon mate