Im not really called Dave:A blog of a bloke who plays poker then writes about it

[turny]

nice post "dave" lovely tribute to a lovely guy

[DaveShoelace]

I'm a guest on Sky Poker's 'the Club' in a week or two and a mate suggested I play a little game I played in my old job.

Basically, and Im sure you lot have heard of or even done this in the past, I used to get dared to say selected random words when in conversation with customers. I attained a bit of a legend status at my old job for doing this because it was one area of life where I was absoloutley fearless. As long as it wasnt vulgar, I would work it into a conversation with a customer.

The first one I did had to be the word 'midget' which isnt exactly the easiest word to strike into a conversation about pensons. Eventually I had a brainwave, I said to the customer "I just need to speak to my supervisor, I'll just be a midget...I mean minute" - alluding basically to the notion I made a rather bizarre frediuan slip.

'Batmans Crackhouse' you would think would have been difficult, but it was suprisingly easy. I asked the customer for their full name, they said Bob Smith or whatever it was, I then said "oh....are you an author by any chance?" No, they said, so I added "sorry, its just that Im halfway through a book called Batmans Crackhouse that was written by a Bob Smith" - they would be a bit taken a back but it got through nonetheless.

'Mushroom Sanister' was also easier than it sounded. We dealt with company pension schemes and when someone rang up saying they were from Bob Smith Ironmongers (Bob Smith Ive made up btw) I would say "I cant find a Bob Smith Ironmongers, the policy number you gave me is for a company called Mushroom Sanister, oh wait, Ive found Bob Smith Ironmongers"

Get it in quick and change the subject quicker, that was the key.

I must admit, I was a bit stumped with how to get 'Skunk Raisins' into the conversation, so eventually opted to just very quickly go "skunk raisins, welcome to Norwich Union" as fast as possible when I answered the phone.

It got to the point where people would come up to me with post it notes with bizarre words on halfway through a phone call I was on and there would be half a dozen people from a different office stood at my desk going "i cant believe he just said it" and giggling. Only once did I back down and that was when an old dear was nearly cyring down the phone with a complaint she had and I had to say 'Oven Mitts'.

So its tempting to do a 'get a word in dare' going for my appearance on the Club, but I do reserve the right to wimp out because unlike the last time, I actually care about my job these days.

[DaveShoelace]

This here is my thousandth post on Blonde, do I get a prize?

I almost marked the 1000th post with a simple 'how much?' post on a thread about a laptop, that would have been pretty bleak.

Most folks do something special for their 1000th post and say what Blonde means to them, so here is mine.

I first signed up to Blonde because I knew a few people that posted on it and I had an account with every major forum, as I was trying to get my 'foot in the door' in the poker industry and wanted to be active on the forums. Generally speaking, I give up posting on forums after about a month because I cant be bothered any more.

I think what made me stick around is the friendliness of the place and also the banter. Quite a lot of the poker forums are saturated with people that cant beat $1 SNGs slagging each other off and flaming every post. While the mods are very active on this forum, at least that element of online poker forums get nipped in the bud very quickly. Whenever someone runs well in a live tournament, makes an online final table or even just goes on a mad rake race thing like MC just did, you have an instant army of followers cheering you on, which I love.

More so, Ive been working and playing from home full time for more than 18 months now and as much as I love it each and every day, It can get lonely waiting for my missus to get back from work. This place gives me that gauranteed bit of chit chat that I so desperatly crave.

So thats it really, love the place because its friendly and social, does exactly what it says on the tin etc.

Apologies for not making BB7 btw, I kinda forgot that it was my old mans 70th birthday until a week or two ago.

[DaveShoelace]

Yesterday I was down in Feltham to record several interviews for the Club on Sky Poker. Neither of my previous two appearances on poker TV shows were that impressive; I appeared on the Open last year, stuttered when I was introduced because I had flopped a full house on my poker table and when I finally got my words together, soft core pornography journalist Grub Smith made fun of my hair (Typically hours after the show I came up with a great comeback – “oi, fuck off Grub Smith”- which I wish I had said at the time). My second appearance was playing on the PartyPoker European Open, which was short and sweet and I think I played ok, but being the 5th place finisher in a 6 table heat is never much to shout about.

It was Dan Lobb and Compo presenting this time round, rather than Dan and Matt Broughton, and it was nice meeting Compo for the first time properly and he seems a really top bloke. Dan Lobb is exactly the same off the camera as he is on the camera, except he is actually about 6ft 3, which surprised me. When I met him in the green room, the first thing he asked me was ‘do you have any gambling leaks?’ which I thought was an interesting, intrusive and innocent question all at the same time, I can only assume Broughton told him what the term ‘leak’ meant the week previous and he has been using it to death ever since.

Also in the green room was Rich Prew plugging this week’s APAT event and Theo Jorgensen, bracelet in hand, looking like the cat that got the cream.

I did three interviews in total, one ‘quick fire’ interview which was just me and Compo and will be aired one night on ‘the open’ in the next week and two interviews for the Club. I took a change of shirt for those two to give the illusion of time passing between shows, the magic of television eh? My first proper interview was all about the WSOPE and the shenanigans that have gone on over the last few weeks and the other was all about my main writing gig – Pokernews, and all the great stuff they’ve got going on at the moment.

I really enjoyed all three interviews and I’m looking forward to watching them all, hopefully I won’t look too much like a fat fucker because I’m a stone lighter than the last time I was on TV. I think I answered all my questions pretty knowledgably and I even managed to crack a few funnies here and there. I think the first one airs on Friday night and no idea when the other ones do, I’ve sky plussed the lot already.

Incidentally, what is it about the M25 that makes everyone suddenly turn into a twat? I had a lovely drive down the M1 the other day and as soon as we hit the M25 it was like how I imagine that Deathrace 2000 film to be.

[DaveShoelace]

Long time no post, mainly because I have had the old man flu and restricted most of my postings to short sharp quips on the Fergus thread.

I mentioned on my standalone blog last week I had man flu, didnt say more more than that, which somehow got me into this dialogue with a lady from ABC news in America:

Hi Barry,
        My name is Lara Salahi and I am a Patient Reporter with ABC News' Medical Unit. Hope you're doing well.
        I'm working on a story about the "Man Flu," and I noticed that you recently have a blog post about getting the Man Flu. I'm sorry that you've been ill but I'm hoping you'd be interested in speaking to be about your latest illness experience. My contact information is below, or if there is a better way to contact you, please let me know. I look forward to hearing from you!
Thanks, 
Lara Salahi
ABC News Medical Unit

Hi Lara,
 
I dont know if you are aware, but 'man flu' is a joke term in the UK that women use to refer to a slight bug that isnt actually that serious, but men blow out of proportion. I was only slightly ill, if at all.
 
I assume you are referring to a more serious version of the flu?
 
Barryy

Barry,
 
    No, the "joke" is exactly what I'm referring to. I'm trying to find perhaps either a couple, a man who thinks he gets the flu worse than women, or a woman who thinks her man over exaggerates with the man flu.
 
    Do you think you could help me?
 
If you're in the UK, do you know anyone in the US I could chat with about that as well?
 
Thanks for your response!
Lara Salahi

How the hell would I know a couple in the US where the man thinks he gets flu worse than the woman? Silly Americans, they invented the credit crunch dont ya know.

In other news, the great thing about being my own boss is I am in the middle of growing a 'boredom beard'. Some weeks only about 4 people see me in total so I can really let myself go and have fun with it. Im on scruffy stubble at the moment, will post a snap when its a proper beard and then Im gonna go for a goatee for a few days, then a moustache, then a hitler for a few minutes then back to clean shaven.

[maccol]

Barry ,I think you are selling yourself short mate.On a recent trip to DtD I picked up a large selection of poker magazines and from a quick flick through them I would estimate your byline appears on well over half the articles across the mags.
You would appear to be a one-man cottage industry.
Anyway your stuff is always worth a read,keep up the good work. 

P.S. Try and get out more,hanging around waiting for the postie is never good

[Amatay]

lololol. looking forward to the hitler snaps m8

[DaveShoelace]

Last week Gala Coral were kind enough to invite me along for a free seat in the Stockton on Tees leg of the GCBPT (Because I am a media type that gets stuff for free) and once again I donated away to a day 1 finish. The usual story really, I built up a big stack early (actually played some of my best poker for the first two levels) but never really got going after the first break.

Partially due to this very chatty and very good Irish bloke that moved to my left after the break and became a real Burdon; outplaying me almost every hand. It didn’t help that the structure was faster than the games I am used to (no 75/150 or 150/300 levels, which are my favourites) and all of a sudden it found me short stacked and running jacks into kings. I do, however, think that a faster structure is needed for the GCBPT and not because of the lower skill element in these events. It is effectively only a two day event, so it does need the faster structure and also there are not that many pros in the field, so it’s unreasonable to expect the players to spend half the week there.

But I must say I do like the GCBPT very much, rightly dubbed the peoples poker tour. What makes them different to say the GUKPT is that most of the field is made up of regulars from that casino (which also makes it great value) rather than the same 200 players regardless of the venue. I think both tours are great btw, I think the GCBPT is the people’s tour and the GUKPT is the prestige tour.

To be honest, I’d just like to cash in either at the moment.

Cash games are going ok at the moment, particularly because the pound is so weak compared to the dollar, I’m glad to be doing my poker business in $ and wish I understood currency well enough to justify cashing some of my roll out (Hmmmmm, I might actually just because its Christmas) and enjoying the exchange rate.

I’m sooooooo jealous of my old workmates; the lucky bastards might be getting made redundant. I was toying with sticking around at my old Norwich Union job because redundancy might have happened, 18 months later it is for some of them. They get a month’s gross pay per year they have been there, I would have got about 14 grand for that, my mate is due to get about £40,000. Lucky bastards.

I’ve been doing some research about how the whole recession thingy might affect the online poker industry, after all this is the first time we have had ‘online gambling’ in a recession, and although gambling historically does well in those periods, some experts think that online poker won’t be as lucrative.

First of all, I don’t think the traffic will go down all that much. For every player that opts out because of the credit crunch there will be a new player in the Asian market to take their place. Not only that but we have things like PKR and Sky Poker bringing new people to the game (Plus the odd idiot trying to poker their way out of a debt).

One thing is for certain, I am not keeping all my bankroll in any one place, that’s just common sense. I’m trying to find out exactly what would happen if an online poker sites bank went bust, but at the moment the online poker rooms haven’t been all that helpful. Could you imagine if Pokerstars invested all their money in Icesave? Christ.

So I have my roll spread out in Neteller, a few poker rooms and I am thinking off sticking it in a savings account. I’d get a lot of interest as a direct result, but as I’m a spanner when it comes to these things I have no idea whether Id be better off not converting the dollars to pounds, or  if I’d get shafted if I redeposited or not. One thing I am doing is sticking all my rakeback straight into a savings account, that’s a nice medium I think and I tend to get quite a bit a month and previously I just used it to pad my roll.

The smaller poker rooms will suffer I think. Duplicate poker has already closed down blaming the credit crunch, but make no mistake, its closing down because it was a fucking stupid idea for a poker room and had way too much invested in it. The Crypto network could be on its way out and I hope they merge with Party as its being suggested. Places like Sky Poker and PKR I think are destined to become huge and I can actually forsee them getting bigger, as will iPoker, especially when William Hill merge with them.

I think the credit crunch will adversely affect live poker more than online. I can see casinos and poker tours see numbers drop more than online poker rooms. The ‘experts’ are saying poker attracts less habitual gamblers and thus, will give the game up much easier in a recession, but as poker is just a mouseclick away and there are no overheads online, I can see it thriving even if lots of smaller rooms and related business suffer.

The beard thing didnt really happen, I shaved it into a goatee but I looked like the ex-con husband from desperate housewives, so shaved it off right away.