Vegas & The Aftermath - Diary

[Bad Beat]

 I was going completely mental when I saw how many people wore football shirts to the World Snooker final. That used to be a black tie affair.

[Bad Beat]

(pretty sure I used to put a suit on just to watch it on TV at home).

[RED-DOG]

this is a cool site.

http://www.gcrailway.co.uk/

And this looks like a cool event.

http://www.gcrailway.co.uk/Events.aspx?ID=400

[tikay]

this is a cool site.

http://www.gcrailway.co.uk/

And this looks like a cool event.

http://www.gcrailway.co.uk/Events.aspx?ID=400

Thanks Tom. I don't really rate "Grand Central Railway" as the Best of British, the name for starters is so dreadfully American, but steam is steam, & that looks a must see.

Which reminds me......

[tikay]

Pardon the chirp - already gleefully posted elsewhere - but I'm off to Nice on Monday for a few days, the highlight being taking the train along the Coast from Nice to Monte Carlo. 

I did that same journey many years ago with, I seem to recall, Thewy, "BadGirl" Pham, Steve Vladar, Stu Fox, & a few others.  Incredibly beautiful piece of coastline, especially so when the sun is shining.

Monte Carlo holds so many memories for me, mixed though, some grand, some not so.

Click to see full-size image.

[tikay]

I was Updating, tableside, with Jen I think, in the Monte Carlo Millions when the Ivey-Jackson hand went off, Ivey invited us to dinner & a Club after, but I declined, not my thing.

Marc Goodwin finished third, & treated Jen & I to the helicopter trip across the bay to the Airport in Nice the next morning. Never again, Helicopters scare the life out of me.

One year was fraught, too, Tony G had just purchased a big lump of blonde, with a promise to invest a bunch of money, & he to handle himself a little better. That went well, not. I like him a lot off-table, he just gets carried away when playing though.  He diddled us of $5k in a Titan Poker freeroll, too, which irked not a little, & Dave & I had to make up the shortfall out of our pockets. Tony had promised a $10k Freeroll IF it made a certain number of runners, & we got the number, but then he saiid that the runners had to have Registered x days in advance to trigger the $10k, so it was only $5k . Marv, another $5k down the swanee, never to be seen again. Pissed me off a bit that I worked hard to earn a few bob & then I found myself in spots like that. 

[tikay]

Spent 2 weekends there on Achilleas's yacht, too. Incredible yacht, 26 crew, of which FIVE were Chefs, & we lived like Lords on it.

I was tasked with finding an on-board game each night, & a dealer, so I went & rounded up a few guys, John Duthie, Tony G, a Swedish lad sponsored by Betfair who's name I have forgotten, Patrik Antonius, & we already had Dave Colclough, Andy Pyrah, Michael Greco ("Beppe" from Eastenders), & Mad Marty on-board, plus Robert Cooper.

The game was started as a €500 freezeout SNG, then it went to a rebuy - God bless Marty - then to €1,000 Freezeouts. I got lucky in one or two the first night when Marty went rebuy-crazy, (I cleared €4,500 in a 9 man €500 SNG in which top three were paid!), & won enough to cover the games for the next few nights, ending up a few k ahead. Then - because in upper-class company, (lol, I know, I know....) on a yachty, you do not settle up until the end - I had the task of geting paid. Not as easy as you might think. 

Eventually, of course, Achilleas & Robert were behind another Online Room which started up, & we (blonde) got done for $7k there, too. Can't recall it's name, but it began with "T" I seem to recall. I really have been pretty dumb with some of these things that bombed.  Sadly, I fell out with Andy Pyrah over that. Andy had previously worked at Matchroom for Barry Hearn, but Eddie took his place, & that worked out nicely for me, in more ways than I can begin to tell you, a strong connection & friendship with the Hearns (Barry, Eddie & Katherine) & others which exists happily to this day.  Strange how things sometimes turn round. 

Oh what memories.

Here's the very yacht - Lady K II

Click to see full-size image.

[tikay]

Love Monte Carlo, though, Jen & I found a lovely little apartment up the hill a bit, which we used on several occasions.

I was the "Site Pro" (lol, the kids will love that) for Sporting Odds at one time, for about 2 years I think, maybe '04 & '05, & they rung me up a day before some Event in Monte Carlo one year. "Can you go to Monte Carlo & host our players please, we have booked a Suite at The Hermitage for you for 4 days?".

At The Hermitage? THE Hermitage?

Umm, OK, if I must......think my suite cost something like €900 per day or whatever. Money was flowing like water in Online Poker then.

DTD were just forming then, they had those dolly girls out there being photographed, with Chubbs & Mr Zimbler in charge of everything.

They (Sporting Odds) wanted me to buy two players in, it was €10,000 each, & so they gave me the cash to take with me. 

There was an Event in Vienna the prior week, so a bunch of us went via there, as I was doing some TV work with Channel 425, Wm Hill TV, with Rhowena & Co. Think it was Tom, Matt Tyler, Thewy, Brian Wilson, Jen, snoops, & we all rented a lovely apartment in Vienna.

I got involved in a cash game in the Concorde, there was a Chinese guy in the game, plus 4 Brits & I.

The Chinese guy was an any two cards merchant, & we all thought we could bust him, he sat down with €3k & we were eyeing the lot, you know how it is when you are full of yourself, & don't respect opponents.  Until you have got the wrong side of that lack of respect equation, nobody can teach you it.

I got up 36 hours later - yup, 36 hours later - & had lost so much I did not dare look in my pocket. When I summoned up the courage to count it, I had gone from being €3k up, to €9k down, so now I did not even have the cash to buy my players in...... 

I'm rambling, I need to go do things.

[Big_D]

Please continue...

[tikay]

I was going completely mental when I saw how many people wore football shirts to the World Snooker final. That used to be a black tie affair.

What ARE they thinking, wearing a football shirt in such a place? Unbelievable. One shudders to think about it.

Each to their own, & a generation gap thing I suppopse. 

Thanks for the Lock/Merge explanation. It does not exactly fit with their "everything is lovely-wovely & jolly exciting" Press Release, now does it?! Such is the task of PR peeps I guess.

Not to give you a rub, or state the bleeding obvious, but life in Poker Networks must be unbelievably tough these days. I heard ICOOP Main had a 6 figure overlay - hope that BlackBelt never copped for too much of that, must be painful to sit on the sidelines whilst other people spend your hard-earned.

We had Jerome on the Show on Thursday - absolutely top-notch blathering, he was on with Jen. Superb TV, it really was. (I was not on it....)

Have you decided on your Vegas plans yet? Last time we met, you were still bimbling about it. See? bimbling. Oooh.

Be good to catch up with you out there if ou go, but spare me the parties please, not my scene at all. We could go visit the Hoover Dam one day though. Zillions of tons of lovely concrete in that. You'd enjoy that.

Click to see full-size image.

[tonytats]

I'm rambling, I need to go do things.

I'm on cigarette breaks between gardening and weeding ,all interesting stuff tikay ,please continue rambling

[Bad Beat]

 Almost a year ago iPoker changed the way it works on these network promotions.

 You used to get an estimate of what each promotion would cost. Maybe they would say we are spending $250,000 on iPops. They would cover the 1st (say) $100,000 and each skin would pay a proprtion of the rest according to their size (amount of rake they bring in as a proprtion of the total). At that time we would be around 1% so we would pay 1% of $150,000 or $1500. If we didn't want to pay then we wouldn't offer iPops - the small skins that just opted out didn't have the events in their lobby, the players couldn't see them.

 Sometimes the estimate would be wrong - because of overlay and the skins would have to pay more.

 These days it's different. They come up with the same figure of $250,000 and they pay $100,000. They then divide up the rest in the same way but they GIVE the skins seats in the evnts to the value of their contribution. In the above example we would get $1500 in "Free" tickets.

 We could use the free tickets to run a special promotion, hold satellites for them, add them to other events we are running or give them to our higher belts.

 In the iPops we gave ten main event seats as a last longer to the top ten players in the 1st event. We also gave a free seat to the main to anyone who won a seat in the 1st four through a satellite.

 It kind of seems to work better this way and it obviously means WillHill and Paddys are putting 300 players each into the events.

[Bad Beat]

 The theory is now that they won't have overlays as so many players will be in nice and early through the seats the sites have to give away.

 Then they decide to guarantee $500,000 in their main event and make the buy-in $125.

 The good news is, (for everyone worrying), they don't ask us to pull up and cover the overlay.

 We get to talk about how great the overlay is and use that as a method for signing players up.

 I am surprised though, by how many supposed "professional" poker players let these overlays slip by. When I see how many guys are raving on about the Scoop - you'd think that Stars were giving all players free hookers and blow.

 It amazes me that someone could be playing a schedule of online events and miss a tournament with a $500,000 guarantee that got just $310,000 in buy-ins.

[Bad Beat]

 I caught Sarah and Jerome on the replay. I thought they were great and I was delighted they wore the patches (Jerome sometimes forgets to pick some up from me).

 I'm hoping to be living with them in Vegas but I still have no idea when I'm coming.

 One thing we are certain to be doing is renting a boat and taking it out on the lake. We'll check out the beeches and have a BBQ and some beer. It'll be fun. You'll be able to see the dam from the boat.

[tikay]

I caught Sarah and Jerome on the replay. I thought they were great and I was delighted they wore the patches (Jerome sometimes forgets to pick some up from me).

 I'm hoping to be living with them in Vegas but I still have no idea when I'm coming.

 One thing we are certain to be doing is renting a boat and taking it out on the lake. We'll check out the beeches and have a BBQ and some beer. It'll be fun. You'll be able to see the dam from the boat.

I was a bit worried that our viewers might not "get" Jerome, so I went on a spam-offensive & warned them that he has a wonderfully dry humour.

I shared a few tables with him in Vegas last year, he blew me away with how he destroyed the "NH Sir" kids with his verbal stuff, he ever so cleverly cut them to shreds, & the cute thing was, they thought he was complimenting them!

They were so busy with their hoodie-clad bonces stuck right up their pimply arses, dissing anyone who dared make a big call, & giving it large against him. I've rarely enjoyed Table Company as much as him. He can play the Omaha a bit, too.

Lol @ "you can see the dam from the boat".

PS - "beaches", please, they are not bloody trees.