Vegas & The Aftermath - Diary

[RED-DOG]

one Gentleman, who's an old mate fom my Gala days, & with whom I still get on well, asked the Manager why I was not being "blinded" every hand! (He got his way). Thanks pal.

Can someone please explain to me the reasoning behind this "rule" Is it to prevent players that are away from the table from gaining an advantage?

[tikay]

one Gentleman, who's an old mate fom my Gala days, & with whom I still get on well, asked the Manager why I was not being "blinded" every hand! (He got his way). Thanks pal.

Can someone please explain to me the reasoning behind this "rule" Is it to prevent players that are away from the table from gaining an advantage?

Some advantage, with Blinds at 300-600 & a 20 minute clock! I've no idea Tom, but it kinda made me think what lengths some folks will go to to gain an advantage. I suppose it could be argued that I was deliberately away from the Table, but it was a genuine & unavoidable situation, & it was costing me plenty on "due" Blinds anyway - we were 6 handed at the time, so you can imagine how much I was being blinded even by the natural course of events. Blinds were 1,500-3,000 by the time we Finalled, (we'd been 5 handed for nearly 2 Levels) so there was no way I could have deliberately "sat out" to gain an advantage.

Some "rules" are justified because "we've always done that", & there is always someone who spots these situations & ensures maximum advantage. But if them are the Rules, fair enough, I guess it depends how badly you wanna win. It's quite normal to hear the question asked when someone is away from the table - "can we Blind him every hand yet" they all echo. I could never bring myself to ask, I really could not, I just wanna chill & have some fun.

[RED-DOG]

I did try to weave a little irony into my question.

[tikay]

More Poker.....

After working hard all day, I suddenly, almost on a whim, decided to head South to Luton for the £50 Single Rebuy affair. HUGE jam on M1, but made it in the nick of time. Well, 5 minutes late actually, but luckily & predictably the Comp began 15 minutes late, so I scraped in. My Table was ELEVEN HANDED & self-deal, jeez........

Ran well again, & my 4k starting stack was 16k by the Break, & I was nailed on to Final.

I had earlier been "gifted" 4k in bizarre circumstances.

Holding  we saw this eye-opening flop...........

 

Hmm, how to get paid?

Nice Man (very nice man, imo....) two to my left Bets 1,300, & he has no chips left in front of him, so I assume he's all-in. I accept his invitation & call, turning my hand over, though, as it happened, only exposing the Ten. There are shouts & hollars from all round the table - "he's still got chips" - & indeed he had, but they were tucked in his hand, so I had not seen them. (My mistake). I quickly turm my cards face down & Nice Man says "oooh, you have the Ten?". Hmm, no chance of getting paid now.

The turn comes.....

And he moves all-in. What? WHAT? Has he got KK? Nah, I call, & he shows 

How very odd!

With luck like tha, I'm soon in cruise mode, up to about 18k with Blinds 100-200, try keeping me out of this Final, I can't miss. But I did.....

Holding  I limp UTG, there's no elevation, & we see this juicy flop.....

 

Soon chips are flying in all directions, & Chip Daddy moves all-in for 25k! I debate a Pass - has he got pocket Nines, or the flush draw? Bugger, I can't Pass, "CALL" for a 37k Pot. The poor fella has the Under-Set -  & I'm in stratospheric chip territory. Until he Turned the case deuce.  You can't do anything except simile & shrug yoor shoulders when these things happen, it's the very essence of poker. But that's another £150 down the swanee.

Next scheduled Tourney looks like being the £300 at Walsall on Saturday, though I'm in London tomorrow (Thursday) for a business Meet, so maybe I'll find summat down there to tempt me. Hope this losing steak ends soon!

[tikay]

The prob with a Diary is keeping up to date, but I intend to try for a while longer.

Monday went down to Feltham for the Show, & we had a ball, Gouldy Presenting & my mates James Browning & Andrew Hannah ("hans47") were the Guests. I was very disappointed with my performance, we tried summat different, & I was not up for it, it kinda got away from me. It's the first time I've really felt "down" about a Sky Show (in myself, I mean, the others were great) & I ploddded back to the Travelodge with a curly lip & could not sleep because of it. Ah well, no rain, no rainbow, I'll do better next time. I'll damn well have to, there's plenty of competition for the Analysts role.

So it was ironic that Tuesday I was lined up as "stooge" in 7 Studio Auditions for Presenters & Analysts, sorta like "would you like my job?" kinda thing! luckily (for me) they were all would-be Presenters, bar one. So we did 7 mini-shows, half-hour each, with me as the sidekick, really quite enjoyable. There are bundles of folks in TV looking for work, so competition at Feltham is intense, a good thing imo. It quite embarrasses me that I've got away with it so far, when there are so many "Pros" out there, but that's outwith my remit, though no doubt I'll get rumbled eventually. We started at 10 & was finished about 2 or 2.30 I think, then I did some work before heading home. Well, to Stanley Notts.......

I so enjoy being at Feltham on office & oddjob duty. I have my own little work-station, but I have to remember that unlike the last 30 years, when I've always been MD & in charge, I'm Mr Nobody now, so I have to remind myself of that all the time. But the Team there are just lovely - all young, & they really make me feel welcome, even feel younger just by mixing with them, they are a great bunch. It's odd, but I always imagined TV Techies were middle-aged minimum, but they are all kids really - the Producers are all in their twenties, & most of the Cameramen are, well, 20-something females, ditto the Sound Engineers, including Luscious Lucy. I find it really quite sexy to watch little girls driving great big complicated cameras, actually.....

And nobody wears suits or ties these days! The girls look lovely, the fellas are in shorts & sandals, whatever would my old Chairman, John Kirkland OBE, have said? He'd send someone home if they turned up at a meeting without a suit & tie, & he sacked many an employee for wearing an ear-ring or having long hair. How times have changed, & it's certainly nice to be able to dress casually at work.

After the Auditions, I got invited to the weekly Sky Poker Show & Poker Meet, where they throw ideas around to improve the Show, different Formats, new Shows in the pipeline, etc. There were about 20 of us, & I looked around the room at all those kids - only Miami Vic (he's in charge) is "old", &, well, you know, today's youth are pilloried, but these guys & gals have a huge responsibility on their shoulders - produce a Live TV Show 7 nights a week, under public scrutiny, & they carry it so bravely & intelligently. They can be well proud.

After that, I did an interview for a Sky Bet Publication which is gonna have a 4 page feature on Sky Poker, than I was done & set off home - that's A312, M25, M4, M40, A43, M1 - my car could drive it blindfold, I've been doing that run for 9 months now.

Spoke at length to Andy Pyrah on the moby, Andy is London Marketing thingy now for Harrahs, & he's gearing up for the WSOP-E in September, & we got some exciting TV stuff sorted for that. He was at Matchroom where he did a brilliant job, & worked with blonde superbly. After that, he went with Bob Clarke at the PPA (whatever happened to that?) & thence to the Johnny Chan Turks & Caicos Invitational. But he's landed on his feet now, & I'm pleased for him, he's solid gold, & has a new-born baby thing. Like myself, Andy was lucky to get invited to stay on Achilleas Kalakkis's yacht in Greece or Monte Carlo?(I forget which) a while back, but we were both a bit out of our depth financially. We were playing SNG's at £500 & £1,000 a pop, & I was fortunate to win & come 2nd from 4 SNG's on Night One for a £7k profit. (The game was not soft either - Achilleas, Robert Cooper, (those 2 won Poker Den three from three!) Dave Colclough, Michael Greco, John Duthie, Tony G, Mad Marty etc). So, that was me in safe territory for the 3 night invite, I could not lose whatever happened now. You don't play with Cash in these things, or pay up nightly, it's "expected" (and I do mean expected...) that at the end of the 3 nights, you will settle your account, in cash. My point being, Andy had no luck on Night One, & knew he could not carry on playing, so he simply fessed up "I can't afford to play any more" & he sat out for the next 2 nights. In the Golden Age of Nippers, he's a proper bloke, a real man.

Then Joe Legge from Virgin rung me too, another top geezer. There are some bad guys in poker, but plenty of good ones, too.

Finally, Des & Tighty & myself had a long & fascinating conference call about APAT Season Two. Boy oh boy, has THAT little baby grown up into a fine thing........Des is some guy, believe me, & you are gonna be amazed at the Season Two plans for APAT, he's worked miracles.

Life is good, the sky is blue & clear, but I suppose a big black cloud will turn up soon enough, life is like that.

[tikay]

Today was e-Mail day - 153 of them answered or sent, I'd missed doing them yesterday & that's what happens when I miss a day. Beats being bored though.

Flushy rung, he's off to Cyprus, the jammy git, for a few days sun, then back in time for a freebie Invite to Goodwood. Pft, he runs so good. He was on a train (ThamesLink) from Brighton to Gatters Airport, & when I asked if it was 8 or 10 coaches, he never even knew. He's so sad.

Spent a lot of time on Facebook today, too. I just don't understand what it's about, in truth, but I get all these e-Mail's about it, & so sorta get carried along with it. Very addictive & time-consuming. But lovely to get messages on my "Wall" from so many nice peeps - especially female ones.......Jane, Heidi, Lucy, Dena, Jen, Claire, Claire (2), Tracey, Anneka, Lisa, Flange, Helen, Sarah. Jeez, I wish I were younger, or that they had these things when I was a kid.

London in the morning, big meet, the 10.04 HST from Derby to St Pancras, lovely.

Fork time.

[tikay]

Be careful what you wish for.

I noted above how I'd exited at Luton last night. Welll, I am sat there with my big stack, & had just flopped the set of 5's to Matey Boy's set of 2's when the bloody Luton "Entertainment" - (= LOUD music) began.  And I thought, "please NO, I don't wanna listen to that again". And Matey Boy turned his quad 2's........

See, there's always a silver lining, to every cloud.

[The_nun]

Stanley pay the Car Park Charges, which is handy & appreciated. I was in the Market Street Euro-Park, which was disqualified from the "World's Worst Designed Underground Car Park" Competition last year because it was not good enough. It's an absolute helll-hole to park in.

Wish i'd have known this last Sunday..we parked there too, quite costly but it saved losing the car again. It is an awful place to park, we got stuck behind a car with foreign plates, left hand drive job, trying for ages to manouvre around the bends.

[tikay]

Stanley pay the Car Park Charges, which is handy & appreciated. I was in the Market Street Euro-Park, which was disqualified from the "World's Worst Designed Underground Car Park" Competition last year because it was not good enough. It's an absolute helll-hole to park in.

Wish i'd have known this last Sunday..we parked there too, quite costly but it saved losing the car again. It is an awful place to park, we got stuck behind a car with foreign plates, left hand drive job, trying for ages to manouvre around the bends.

Have you EVER been in a worse Car Park Maureen? Those ramps are almost impossible to negotiate, all the spaces have a concrete column flanking them, & are so small.

[RED-DOG]

Be careful what you wish for.

I noted above how I'd exited at Luton last night. Welll, I am sat there with my big stack, & had just flopped the set of 5's to Matey Boy's set of 2's when the bloody Luton "Entertainment" - (= LOUD music) began.  And I thought, "please NO, I don't wanna listen to that again". And Matey Boy turned his quad 2's........

See, there's always a silver lining, to every cloud.

Are we getting the moosic during the fessie?

[Karabiner]

What would Mr Kirkland OBE have said about a bloke who dyed his hair blonde ?

[TightEnd]

Be careful what you wish for.

I noted above how I'd exited at Luton last night. Welll, I am sat there with my big stack, & had just flopped the set of 5's to Matey Boy's set of 2's when the bloody Luton "Entertainment" - (= LOUD music) began.  And I thought, "please NO, I don't wanna listen to that again". And Matey Boy turned his quad 2's........

See, there's always a silver lining, to every cloud.

Are we getting the moosic during the fessie?

sadly likely, its not a poker room decision

I understand its a "social venue" but it is horrific!

[tikay]

What would Mr Kirkland OBE have said about a bloke who dyed his hair blonde ?

You jest. I'd not have dared!

[tikay]

It was the 10.04 from Derby this morning (hauled by a Class 43, 43107, amazingly 35 years in service & still more efficient than a modern DMU) & into St Pancras for 11.51.

The Meet was in Euston, & was about 4 hours, groan, followed by another, more upbeat, jobbie. The first Meet was a blonde job, & it was heavy, but very useful, the blonde Cardroom is coming together nicely now & the figures are improving week-on-week. It's all a matter of tweaking really, though Kev & Denis must take all the credit for the Cardroom progress. July is already our best ever month by a long way, & we still have a week left.

It absolutely tipped with rain in London, thwarting my plans to take a good look at the old St Pancras Hotel & Station, the restoration of which has been magnificent. It's probably the finest building of it's kind in the world, & I'm so glad they decided to restore rather than replace. In contrast, the British Library, next door, is just so awful, a true monstrosity of a building.

The journey home was a real pain, the line was flooded at Long Eaton, so all the Derrby trains were cancelled, & I had to go to Nottingham & catch a cab back to Derby, 34 bloody quid!

Played the $30k on Laddies, made a truly awful play to bust when just off the money & with plenty of chips, a real moment of madness.

Worse still, I played the Mansion $50k Guaranteed, thinking it was a $50 Freezeout, but it was a rebuy, & it as all daft harem-scarem stuff early on. One guy had 13 rebuys, only had one play -all-in, every hand. These guys are easy meat, but it needs patience to trap them good & proper. I think there were 396 runners, 45 paid, & Thewy came to my Table with about 150 left, he had a tidy stack,. but had a bad accident & that was that. I was in bad shape now, but a series of blundering all-ins, in which I was dominated every single time, but produced a Muffers MasterClass, & I was soon up to 45k, way above average.

Now, I made a proper mess of my exit hand, but what would YOU do here?

45 paid, 47 left, & I'm way above average. Lairy Deep-Stack Man to my right is moving all-in for, like, 100k (blinds are 800-1,600, 50 ante) on his Button (my BB) every single time.  We are 2 off the money, remember......

Anyway, I find  , he moves all-in, I call, he's got  & hits two Queens, & I'm history, 1 off the dough. I still think it's the correct play by me, but a year ago I'd have ducked it.

I decide to play some $5 $10 Omaha, which has been very kind to me of late, but I can't find a game on any Site, so I somewhat nervously sit down at a $10 $20, which is a tad big for me. It's a $2,000 max sit-down (I always sit down with the max), & I get lucky early & am up to almost $3,000, & I'm thinnking "LEAVE NOW"........I mean, $1,000 is serious money. What would my Dad have said, if he'd known I was sitting down with $2k, or Posting $20 Blinds almost every hand? Anyway, it dribbles away, & I eventually shut up shop with $2,290, so a baby profit, but hardly a success. Jeff "Jaffa Cake" Kimber was on the table for a while, a real gent. Oh, & friend of Ade's, from Gutshot. So we had all this "I LOVE myself" stuff to put up with......

I was a bit upset to see how the Women's poker thread got a tad out of hand, as I'd started the damn thing, in all innocence, just trying to help the Walsall guys, who are good lads. Almost wish I never bothered now. I know Johnny Raab, a top, top, bloke, & been of tremendous help to blonde, & Poker 425/Poker week, was well frustrated. I think his point was that they have been adding a lot of money to the Poker Circuit in the last 18 months, & still everybody moans & groans. I reminded him that I'd had the same deep, frustrations, with APAT early doors, after we'd added about $100,000 in Season One alone & still got it in the neck. Such is life, I guess.

No plans to play "Live" tomorrow.

PS - What's on at Luton on Friday night?........

[tikay]

Driving to London earlier in the week, & on the train today, it's amazing to see the fields all flooded, & swollen, ugly brown, rivers.

One feels really sad for those whose homes have been flooded. Thankfully, either via the Council Landlord, or Insurance, it's "only" (& I say that reservedly) a function of money & time in most cases. Adversity in life is not always a bad thing in the longer-term, though it's not nice at the time. We all have to suffer our share in different ways, & suffering a few of life's bumps & bruises are generally no bad thing inthe grand scheme of things.

So I was a mite surprised to see how some of the newspapers (including the quite dreadful Daily Mail, surely the newspaper equivelant of Gloria Hunniford?) describe the situation as "a humanitarian disaster". Eh? Now, I agree, it must be awful but genuine humanitarian disasters are of a different league altogether. I guess that's why I stopped buying newspapers & watching the news on TV, it's all about sensationalising everything.

On a happier note, all the ducks, mallards, geese & swans I've seen this week look well happy. What's good for the, well, goose, is good for the gander, & all that.