Whatever happened to Jonathan Raab?

Last I heard he was living in Malta. Dunno what happened to him there, he was at Stars for quite a while I believe, not sure what he’s been up to recently.

Well, not much, been out of work for quite a while, but hoping to get back to something full time again soon. In the meantime, have started writing a little about live poker again. This is the second part of a series on live poker restarting that I’ve done. Been a bit rusty as haven’t really written about poker for years, but I intend to do a few more, so hopefully the writing skills will improve a little over the next few articles.

https://pokerindustrynews.com/poker-news/live-poker/back-to-the-future-part-2-issues-and-challenges-of-restarting-live-poker/

Good to be back

Its an interesting discussion, shot clocks have upsides and downsides, some of which have been noted here already, but one potential downside which hasn't been brought up yet is what the impact on table chat/sociability will be once everyone has become hypnotised into watching clocks ticking down. People say poker is getting boring, so maybe this is not the answer to putting fun back into the game, although I definitely agree that some de-tanking measures need to be put in place.

Even better if he's lactose intolerant as they won't even make it as far as his stomach.

Needs more love

Hi Tony, long time no see, hope you are well. Saw this and thought you might like it. Cruise liner shaped abandoned hotel for rail buffs.

http://trib.al/3O1qNhy

Extrmely sad news. Condolences to his family and a great loss for poker and particularly for this forum. Have many good memories of times with Dave. His heads up against Barry Neville in Manchester is one of them, but I think my favourite was sharing drinks with him in the Bellagio at the Fontana bar, on the day after he got a new tatooo. It was an enormous image of a women on his arm and even he was shocked, saying he never asked for it to be that big. Will be sorely missed. RIP Dave.

I seem to vaguely remember this, it was the first GUKPT Grand Final. I think he may have been acting on the advice of his 'manager', the recently mentioned in this thread Malcolm Muskett, due to his tendency to blow huge chip stacks very quickly at this stage of tournaments.

A "joint" exhibition in Amsterdam, sounds appropriate...

Ben Akiva?

Yes, I was working for a spread betting firm at the time it was on and watched it. Phil had sold total goals or bookings or something like that. I remember talking to Phil about it years later, which was when I realised it was him. "Old guy in an armchair doing his bollocks in" was his take on it. "They used to call me Peter Sellers" he said, as he always took the unders.

Was it ryan that got a4 in pre in the first hand of a big comp, thinking it was aces?

I do seem to remember that, but can't remember where it was.

The 2005 Blackpool Bonanza and Jimmy Alp's purple patch, ah yes, good memories.

Phil and Niamh Peters, last time I saw them was in Sunny Beach Bulgaria in 2010, hope they are both still well. Phil and I had a bit of a run in at Blackpool one time, when he was in one of his cantankerous moods, but we got on very well after that. Anyone remember the time he got thrown in jail in Vegas for card-counting (they claimed it was trespass)?

Very sad indeed that Dave has passed away. Its been said before, but he did do more than anyone else in the UK to popularise the game and will be sorely missed.

From a personal perspective, its also very close to home for me, as I have just recently spent some time in hospital, having been diagnosed with chronic bowel disease, although my biopsy results for colon cancer were thankfully OK.

Pete Linton is here in Vienna at the Eureka/EPT festival, but only for the cash games. He's retired from tournaments.

It's about 90mins - 2 hours drive from either Prague or Munich.

There are lots of potential places we could visit with Eureka and we hope to announce at least one more stop on top of the Vienna, Rozvadov and Prague events that are already scheduled for 2014. Rozvadov, in case anyone doesn't know, is a small village in Czech Rep, very close to the border with Germany. The venue there is Kings Casino and the owner (Leon Tsoukernik) has an attitude very similar to that of Rob Yong. There are big events there every week. A few years ago, when the place first started to become a poker destination, they had a weekly €50k guarantee on a €330 tournament and missed the guarantee almost every week in the first year. Its the DTD of central Europe.

Morning JR.

I had to google "Urban Expolorers" for starters, never heard of them.


http://www.urbanexplorers.net/

As to the "Mail Rail" opening to the public, you can have an even Ten Shllings with me it will never happen. H & S on Railways is horrendously strict. Try getting that past these people, good luck with that.....


http://www.rail-reg.gov.uk/server/show/nav.1210

Anyway, more to the point, how is life with you these days? You still with that up & coming Poker Site?

We've shared some fun, & adventures, down the years, you & me, especially the Usual Suspects thing. Can you name those "Usual Suspects"? What a great night we had to start that, in Trafalger Square, when Sir Clive Sinclair dropped in & promptly fell asleep with a glass of malt whiskey in his hand.

What are your views on your baby - the GUKPT - as to how it has grown up after you nursed it from the cradle?

Hope all is good with you & yours, & be good to hook up soon & have a latte.

All is well with me. I still of course have fond memories of my time with Grosvenor and the GUKPT, but rarely make it into any UK cardrooms these days. I haven't even visited the Vic since it's recent refurbishment. I played the Goliath in 2012 however and was most impressed with the way that event has really taken off. GUKPT main festivals seem to have had mixed fortunes over the last few years, but numbers seem to be growing again at the last few events and I am glad that Grosvenor have stuck with the tour through some harder years, to get to the stage they are at now. I was quite sad to see Blue Square disappear however, having been with the company since the beginning, before it was even called Blue Square. Oh well, maybe that box of old Blue Square memorabilia that I still have in the attic may be worth putting on e-bay one day. Card protector anyone?

The Unusual Suspects:

Suspect                                                Where are they now?

'Burnley' John Falconer                           Burnley
Simon Nowab                                        no comment
Stuart Nash                                           any recent sightings?
Ian 'At-iT' Bradley                                  Works for Sporting Index
JP Kelly                                                 Deauville, he just cashed in 10th place in EPT Main   
James 'Flushy' Dempsey                         queuing for a drink in a pub in Sheffield, according to latest fb sighting  
Jen Mason                                            media coordinating and journalising for various organisations, I believe
Joe Grech                                             any recent sightings? presumably still around
Ricky 'The Online Qualifier'  McElroy        Online?
Mickey Wernick                                     Not so well these days

Jen was a deserving winner and also narrowly missed cashing in EPT Deauville and the EPT Grand Final that year (2006), but indeed Sir Clive snoring away whiskey glass in hand was definitely the highlight of the promotion for me.
                               
My latest baby is the Eureka Poker Tour, which is now about to enter its fourth season. It started off as a small scale tour, taking in various locations in Central and Eastern Europe, but has grown considerably in the last year, with national participation records broken for the main events in Bulgaria and Croatia, capped off with a monster in Prague last December, where 1,315 took part in the biggest Eureka Poker Tour main event to-date. The next event on the tour is in March in Vienna and is likely to be another 1,000+ runners tournament.

But, I have another baby on the way too...and not a poker related one. Fingers crossed, all being well, I'll be a dad in May.

Back to more interesting matters...

Whatever 10 shillings works out at in todays money, I think I can afford to lose it, especially a 'never' is beyond both of our lifetimes. I really hope they do open it, even as a tourist ride and museum, but I guess it will depend on what happens to the Royal Mail's Mount Pleasant site above it, as there are developers interested in it for flats.

The story of the explorers who broke into it a couple of years ago is here:

http://www.placehacking.co.uk/2011/04/24/security-breach-london-mail-rail/

Its quite a long read, but has lots of photos and also info about disused underground stations they got into too. They ended up getting caught of course, but had a terrific adventure along the way.

Hope to catch up with you soon Tony, but my latte days are over. I'm strictly an espresso man now