Vegas & The Aftermath - Diary

[tikay]

Tikay - as you live in London I wondered if you have heard of this scheme ?

http://londonist.com/2016/02/video-london-power-tunnels

I hadn't and today we found one !
We drilled into the top of one and struck a278 kva cable
Sparks flew believe me !
We have an inquest on site tomorrow
Thankfully nobody was hurt as it happened 15.7 m below ground level !
And these high voltage cables insta trip out

Sorry for the delayed reply, Tony, been a bit waylaid with this & that.

I was completely oblivious to these "Power Tunnels", but I suppose it all makes perfect sense.

Great video, that, so here it is, well worth a watch, fascinating stuff.

You planning to do another Vegas trip  in 2017? Have to say, Vegas this year was the absolute nuts for me, & for Gill, too. Wonderful memories.

[tikay]

Someone needs cheering up a bit me thinks. Hope all goes ok tonight.

This will be open to the public in 2017

https://vimeo.com/user55317879

"The trains have been purpose-built to carry passengers, the first to do so in the network's 100 year history. You'll be able to ride on these trains yourself as part of the Mail Rail at The Postal Museum experience when The Postal Museum opens its doors in 2017"


http://londonist.com/2014/04/video-inside-mail-rail

That looks pretty cool, might just have to take Gill to see that.

[DaveShoelace]

Dan Lobb got a mention in Mondays Metro newspaper from Andrew Castle in a column he was writing. He was his doubles partner in some sort to tennis charity event.  

I'd plum forgotten all about Dan Lobb until you mentioned him.

We rarely worked together - just 5 or 6 times I think - & we were not really mutually attracted. Dan was very "superior", & self-assured, & there were often behind the scenes flare ups.

He did well for himself though, moving on to Daybreak & other stuff.

I recall you being the phone-in guest one night, too. Happy memories.

The time I lost my temper at him in a meeting and threw a paper ball which hit him on the forehead.  Not my finest hour....but I wasn't really one for 'talent'isms.

One of the first times I did a telly show (as a guest) with Dan we were chatting in the green room and not sure how it came up but I mentioned I had been moonlighting for one of PokerNews's (while I worked for PokerNews) biggest rivals at the time under a pseudonym. I asked him to keep it to himself.

So he blurted it out about 2 minutes into the show.

Bless him.

Ha, that's about right, God bless Mr Lobb.

Did OK for himself though, so good luck to him.

When is the next book due? Are you living in luxury from the royalties of TMGOP?

Can you believe I am juggling two books atm, one with Mr Tendler and another one thats a labour of love solo project. Think you'd enjoy the synopsis on that one - how the internet and our vast material comforts these days are making us all much more thin skinned and easily offended. In answer to your question, I am expecting both to be end of next year atm because I'm mega busy with other stuff.

Life goal of mine is to have five proper books out by the time I am 40 years old (currently 37 and have two out there).

One of the reasons for that goal is how much I have enjoyed the fruits of the first two, yes they have paid off handsomely thanks. I still get regular royalties that are way beyond what I ever expected to get when we were plugging away at them. A lot due to the fact we did an audiobook and have it translated in a bunch of languages - just signed off on an Estonian version as it happens. Shame somebody thought it would have been a nice idea to illegally translate and distribute the bloody thing in Russian for free about a week before we signed off on that particular version.

Any movement on your own book project I recall you mentioning a year or so ago?

Good man, that's great to hear. I suppose, with poker being global, the target market is huge.

Think you thoroughly deserve it, you've certainly put the graft in. We had Jared & you on the Show at various times, too.  

What was the hardest - writing the book, or all the puffing it up afterwards?

I would imagine all the post-writing stuff is the hardest.

When I see TMGOP on the bookstalls at The Rio at WSOP time, I feel a little burst of pride. "My mate wrote that" sorta thing.

As I expect you know, Chris Moorman has another book about to be published, & his publishers have been pestering me for months to get involved in making some noise, but he is with 888 & so it's not really appropriate for me right now.

So here's another puff for your one. The great thing about your book is that it is timeless, & does not "age".

PS - do you ever hear from or see Rich Milner these days? He seems to have disappeared out of my orbit completely. Think it kinda broke his heart to leave SB&G, & maybe he feels a little uncomfy about it all. Shame, he's a decent fella, rarely speaks ill of others - a lovely trait - & a genuinely nice man, & I much enjoyed working for him. We used to chat most days, but I've never heard a word since the day he left. Proper boss, too, dressed properly & never wore plimsolls in the office like my current man. 

So much harder writing it. I'm a very productive writer and can knock out thousands of words a day, Jared is an absolute perfectionist. Having to slow down and do so many iterations of the book was very hard for me, especially having no guarantee it would sell a single copy. However, his perfectionism (and obviously his source material) made it what it was.

Promoting it was a joy, brought the best out of me, I could do that shit all day. If I have one way in which I would toot my own horn is I have a really good awareness of who is doing what in poker, so I knew that poker website A needed free content, poker website B had a big forum where Jared could do a question an answer thread, poker site C has an online store where we could potentially sell the book etc. The book was actually a great networking tool for me and I made a load of win-win situations.

Agree about the timeless thing, that's why I signed on to do it to be honest. I see all these poor sods write books about how to beat No Limit knowing full well that their material is out of date by the time it hits the shelves. We are almost selling as many copies in 2016 as we were in the last four years (Book 2 has dropped off in sales a bit more tbf).

I didn't even know Rich Milner had left, where did he go? I heard he had moved up at Sky and it was partially why I thought I'd not heard from him as much. Certainly one of the nicest fellas I have met in the industry.

You'll like this, we've got my Mum an experience riding up front on a steam train for crimbo. My sister has handled all of it, I'll get you the details.

[tikay]

10 years? Bloody Hell, most A list movie stars don't last that long.


When are you going to write that book?

Barry Crater asked the same question, Tom, but I'm not sure it'll ever happen now.

For starters, I don't have the range of vocabulary necessary, & what is interesting to me is of little interest to most.

And it's finding time, too.  As long as I'm working - & I hope never to give up working, as I enjoy it immensely - there's just not enough hours in the day.  And I'm starting a project for Next Door shortly which will involve writing a whole heap of stuff, so that'll keep me occupied for a bit, too.

A really weird thing went off this week. I went up to Leeds & amongst other things, provisionally agreed to a 1 year contract extension, (subject to agreeing legals, Contracts & all that), which put my mind at rest. Don't think it was ever in doubt, but you never know, do you, & the day has to come when they say "thanks Tony, it's been great, but the time has come....."

Anyway, the very next morning - like 9am the next morning - I got a 'phone call from another organisation. It went, words to the effect, "hi mate, I see the TV gig has ended, so when you gonna come work for us?"

Which was kinda flattering, all things considered.

What are your plans for Christmas, Tom - all the girls coming to your place?

Do you all buy each other presents, & exchange cards & all that shite?

[tikay]

Dan Lobb got a mention in Mondays Metro newspaper from Andrew Castle in a column he was writing. He was his doubles partner in some sort to tennis charity event.  

I'd plum forgotten all about Dan Lobb until you mentioned him.

We rarely worked together - just 5 or 6 times I think - & we were not really mutually attracted. Dan was very "superior", & self-assured, & there were often behind the scenes flare ups.

He did well for himself though, moving on to Daybreak & other stuff.

I recall you being the phone-in guest one night, too. Happy memories.

The time I lost my temper at him in a meeting and threw a paper ball which hit him on the forehead.  Not my finest hour....but I wasn't really one for 'talent'isms.

One of the first times I did a telly show (as a guest) with Dan we were chatting in the green room and not sure how it came up but I mentioned I had been moonlighting for one of PokerNews's (while I worked for PokerNews) biggest rivals at the time under a pseudonym. I asked him to keep it to himself.

So he blurted it out about 2 minutes into the show.

Bless him.

Ha, that's about right, God bless Mr Lobb.

Did OK for himself though, so good luck to him.

When is the next book due? Are you living in luxury from the royalties of TMGOP?

Can you believe I am juggling two books atm, one with Mr Tendler and another one thats a labour of love solo project. Think you'd enjoy the synopsis on that one - how the internet and our vast material comforts these days are making us all much more thin skinned and easily offended. In answer to your question, I am expecting both to be end of next year atm because I'm mega busy with other stuff.

Life goal of mine is to have five proper books out by the time I am 40 years old (currently 37 and have two out there).

One of the reasons for that goal is how much I have enjoyed the fruits of the first two, yes they have paid off handsomely thanks. I still get regular royalties that are way beyond what I ever expected to get when we were plugging away at them. A lot due to the fact we did an audiobook and have it translated in a bunch of languages - just signed off on an Estonian version as it happens. Shame somebody thought it would have been a nice idea to illegally translate and distribute the bloody thing in Russian for free about a week before we signed off on that particular version.

Any movement on your own book project I recall you mentioning a year or so ago?

Good man, that's great to hear. I suppose, with poker being global, the target market is huge.

Think you thoroughly deserve it, you've certainly put the graft in. We had Jared & you on the Show at various times, too.  

What was the hardest - writing the book, or all the puffing it up afterwards?

I would imagine all the post-writing stuff is the hardest.

When I see TMGOP on the bookstalls at The Rio at WSOP time, I feel a little burst of pride. "My mate wrote that" sorta thing.

As I expect you know, Chris Moorman has another book about to be published, & his publishers have been pestering me for months to get involved in making some noise, but he is with 888 & so it's not really appropriate for me right now.

So here's another puff for your one. The great thing about your book is that it is timeless, & does not "age".

PS - do you ever hear from or see Rich Milner these days? He seems to have disappeared out of my orbit completely. Think it kinda broke his heart to leave SB&G, & maybe he feels a little uncomfy about it all. Shame, he's a decent fella, rarely speaks ill of others - a lovely trait - & a genuinely nice man, & I much enjoyed working for him. We used to chat most days, but I've never heard a word since the day he left. Proper boss, too, dressed properly & never wore plimsolls in the office like my current man. 

So much harder writing it. I'm a very productive writer and can knock out thousands of words a day, Jared is an absolute perfectionist. Having to slow down and do so many iterations of the book was very hard for me, especially having no guarantee it would sell a single copy. However, his perfectionism (and obviously his source material) made it what it was.

Promoting it was a joy, brought the best out of me, I could do that shit all day. If I have one way in which I would toot my own horn is I have a really good awareness of who is doing what in poker, so I knew that poker website A needed free content, poker website B had a big forum where Jared could do a question an answer thread, poker site C has an online store where we could potentially sell the book etc. The book was actually a great networking tool for me and I made a load of win-win situations.

Agree about the timeless thing, that's why I signed on to do it to be honest. I see all these poor sods write books about how to beat No Limit knowing full well that their material is out of date by the time it hits the shelves. We are almost selling as many copies in 2016 as we were in the last four years (Book 2 has dropped off in sales a bit more tbf).

I didn't even know Rich Milner had left, where did he go? I heard he had moved up at Sky and it was partially why I thought I'd not heard from him as much. Certainly one of the nicest fellas I have met in the industry.

You'll like this, we've got my Mum an experience riding up front on a steam train for crimbo. My sister has handled all of it, I'll get you the details.

Great to hear the book is still selling well, & I guess a few extra copies will go at Crimble, it's not a bad gift for a poker player.

Is your Mum a train geek then? Details of what line & loco please.

Rich Milner left, at a guess, 6 or 9 months ago now.

His role in Poker disappeared. He was Head of Poker, but they had one of those re-organisations, & the post disappeared, it is now done sort of centrally, in conjunction with the Bingo team, & there is now no such thing as Head of Poker or Head of Bingo, it works via Marketing, Acquisition & Product Teams.

He was given a new role, think it was Head of X-Sell. As you probably know, X-Sell is hugely important at a place like SB&G, where they have all the platforms - Bet, Vegas, Casino, Bingo, Poker, FTP etc.

But I got the impression his heart was not in it & he missed running Poker. In fact he used to ring me more often after he moved to X-Sell than he did when he was running Poker. He really loves poker, & I think he missed the day to day involvement. So he'd ring me 2 or 3 times every week & we'd natter about this & that.

And then, suddenly, I started hearing rumours that he had left, & that was that. Doubt you'd meet a nicer bloke in the poker industry, but maybe that was his problem, he was too nice.

Never heard a word from him since that day to this.

[tikay]

OK, I gotta go do some work, but I'll leave you with a question.

I chanced upon this place yesterday whilst up in London, it is in Finsbury Square, where rents & property values must be stratospheric.

And it begs several questions.

Liverpool has a University? Why, & for whom?

Why do they need premises in London?

How can they justify the cost of such grand premises in such a prestige location?  

What is the idea of a Uni having a separate base? Is there a Cambridge University in London?

Universities aren't just one off institutions these days you know. Many of them, Liverpool included are part of the 'Russell Group' so that link may have something to with the London arm. Many are actually global these days as well with campuses all over the world. Nottingham has campuses in China and Malaysia for example.

I don't think cost would be a major concern in having London premises. £510M turnover according to this: http://www.russellgroup.ac.uk/about/our-universities/university-of-liverpool/

Actually a little bit of surfing whilst typing has found this: https://www.liverpool.ac.uk/london/

If you look at the programmes they do they're all masters or post graduate courses in finance, law, accounting etc. basically all the things you'd want to do in London to make yourself a mint. I bet they can charge a fortune for them. Fantastic bit of business by the University by the looks of it.

I suppose it makes sense when I think about it, Matt.

I'm not entirely sure I like the idea of education & business sharing the same bed though, it suggests one or other may be compromised.

I also realised a few days later that Universities having annexes some way from home is not new to me, as I had previously discovered that beautiful Holloway College, part of London University, out in the sticks near Ascot.

[tikay]

OK, I gotta go do some work, but I'll leave you with a question.

I chanced upon this place yesterday whilst up in London, it is in Finsbury Square, where rents & property values must be stratospheric.

And it begs several questions.

Liverpool has a University? Why, & for whom?

Why do they need premises in London?

How can they justify the cost of such grand premises in such a prestige location?  

What is the idea of a Uni having a separate base? Is there a Cambridge University in London?

Universities aren't just one off institutions these days you know. Many of them, Liverpool included are part of the 'Russell Group' so that link may have something to with the London arm. Many are actually global these days as well with campuses all over the world. Nottingham has campuses in China and Malaysia for example.

I don't think cost would be a major concern in having London premises. £510M turnover according to this: http://www.russellgroup.ac.uk/about/our-universities/university-of-liverpool/

Actually a little bit of surfing whilst typing has found this: https://www.liverpool.ac.uk/london/

If you look at the programmes they do they're all masters or post graduate courses in finance, law, accounting etc. basically all the things you'd want to do in London to make yourself a mint. I bet they can charge a fortune for them. Fantastic bit of business by the University by the looks of it.

Surely that's best left to a London Uni, though?

[tonytats]

We managed 3 vegas trips this year Tony all of them using air miles accrued on a virgin credit card ,they cost £450 for me n Denise plus £180 for exit row seats ! A great deal methinks I look at it as being like rakeback !
Plus the one in January we drove to Phoenix to visit my friend David Doak
Driving via the Grand Canyon no not the glass plate thing we entered the wrong zip code and went via a dirt track 13 miles long !to the bottom of the canyon !
It was quite spectacular tho
We hired a Chevy Tahoe - think Range Rover sized SUV and part of the journey / the lost part of it put us on Route 66 doing 105 mph in a Chevy to to the levy ! - another minor bucket list thing done !
We stayed at the mirage ,south point , rio golden nugget , downtown grand and south point all very enjoyable
October saw me fly to Phoenix to see stevie nicks - fleetwood mac lead singer- opening night of her North American tour
Very worth while as I've always been a fan of her music
I stayed with David again he was a democratic media expert and before he retired he ran election campaigns to elect governors and senators
he turned Hilary clintons request to run her husbands campaign down !
As his firm would have lost a lot of other more lucrative work ! 
so he explained the whole American election system to me
All very interesting
So it's been a good year
Plus we've been on a massive heater work wise
So you can expect some interesting civil engineering jobs starting soon
The biggest being HS2

[tikay]

Any chance you could do the impression of your favourite tube journey, please? I seem to recall this as a particular highlight of your time on 861. I could almost hear the gallery shouting "What is he doing?!"

- best and worst guests?
- who would you have loved to have on but couldn't get (apart from me and Doobs)?
- biggest diva?
- favourite inverview?
- closest near miss?

Have a great night.

It's been emotional.

Crikey, Simon, some awkward ones there.

Think I'd best swerve "best & worst" guests......

Amongst the better ones were Tim Lovejoy, Oliver Spencer, the boxer, & a few footballers.  

As to worst, no names, but some of the poker players we had on were a disaster, unable to recognize an open or closed question, monosyllabic, & frankly without an ounce of social skills or grace. Some great exceptions, though, Kevin Allen for example. (and many others, too many to mention).

Fave interview? Too many to remember really, but Annette was enjoyable each time, I really like her, ditto Daniel Negreanu.  

Worst interview - not even close - was Phil Ivey.  He was with Tilt at the time, & has been forced to do it by them. It was so bad I don't even think we showed it. No grace, no manners, no humour, no convo.

Diva? Well Helen Chamberlain was interesting. She is extremely strong-minded, & everything has to be done her way. We were in the Studio one evening & were called to do Rehearsal, & the Director says "come on, let's get started". Quick as a flash, Helen retorted, "YOU lot can go to rehearsal, I'm watching the fist half of the England game thank you very much, so you can all **** off". Having said that, an absolute top top pro, & I loved working with her, even though it was not really mutual, & she preferred to work with others, mainly Nick Wealthall & Matt Broughton.  Ho hum.

Of screen though, we got on famously, & I adored her. Saw her last week actually, filming some Xmas stuff for soccer AM, with all the Sky Sports football pundits, Neville, Carragher & Co.  

[tikay]

Nice one Tikay, cracking show that and you got a lot of people into poker who wouldn't otherwise have made the transition.

Thanks Alex. Was quite proud to have helped get more people into poker, both with Sky & APAT.

It's quite hard sometimes looking after the forum Next Door when everyone is moaning & groaning about poker, poker sites & poker people, but Team Moan have never done a single thing to get more folks into poker. So I have to bite my tongue.

What you doing these days, you still in poker or have you gone & got a proper job? Do you still have a gun dog, & do that shooting stuff?

[tikay]

Nice one Tikay, cracking show that and you got a lot of people into poker who wouldn't otherwise have made the transition.

This.

You guys really made the first intimidating steps so much easier. Whether it was the show, the forum or the live events Sky always took that 'douchebag 2+2 LOL at how you played your hand' mentality out of poker.

I dare not even reply to that Barry, it makes me so mad. And berating "bad" players, how ridic is that? Berating & humiliating those of lesser abilities, be it poker, punting, or just real life, is the dumbest thing ever, & says more about the accuser than the accused. I can't abide that sort of thing.

If we see a disadvantaged person, or someone who is sub-normal in some way, do we berate them for that? Deliberately humiliating others who we may consider inferior in some way is a dreadful human trait.

[tikay]

Thought  you might like this article on the BBC website.

Britain's least used station has 12 passengers a year... http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p04kmxc4

I did see that, yes, & had to have a little investigate to see why a train station with 12 passengers per year could possibly stay open.

And of course there IS good reason, or there is in theory.

It's all about the Franchise Contracts, which legally requires them to do certain things. The railway franchise system, & the TOC's is nothing short of a disaster, it really is. 

Hence this Southern Rail strike, which is 100% political.

Southern Rail don't get a penny from the fares received, it all goes to the government. So they are not losing a penny during the strikes. Southern Rail get paid a fee for running the service, that's it. 

The Franchise Contract requires Southern Rail to operate trans without a guard, it's a legal Contract, they either do it or lose the gig.

And all the while, who suffers? The passengers. It's s dreadful do.

[tikay]

Did you catch this the other day.  It was, the way too worthy, Simon Reeve's new show where budding young inventors try and solve every day problems for people with problems.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b084zttn/the-big-life-fix-with-simon-reeve-episode-1

Loved this particular story if you can't do the full 60 minutes

What an amazing thing, David.

Really, really emotional to watch.

Wonderful, wonderful, stuff.

[tikay]

Dammit Doobs, why'd I open that when someone was cutting onions....

Brilliant idea putting inventors together with people's problems.

So young to have to live with Parkinson's too.  That bastard with the onions even got me when I rewatched it.

Any news of O8 events in UKOPS Tony? 

1 x PLO, & 1 x PLO8.

As it happens, I may not be able to play either.

I have to do a Blog for every day of UKOPs, 27th to 30th December, & Gill will be down here with me. Each blog takes about 3 or 4 hours, as I have to do a lot of player research, so I tend to do an hour before bed, & then 2 or 3 hours starting at 5am the next morning. So it would not be very fair on Gill if I also sat & played poker in the evening. I can't do it in the lounge in front of the TV either, I have to go into the Study so I can focus.

We are also off up Town one day, Afternoon Tea at a posh place (The Wolseley), then off to the Theatre. You know, like what posh people do.

[Tal]

Any chance you could do the impression of your favourite tube journey, please? I seem to recall this as a particular highlight of your time on 861. I could almost hear the gallery shouting "What is he doing?!"

- best and worst guests?
- who would you have loved to have on but couldn't get (apart from me and Doobs)?
- biggest diva?
- favourite inverview?
- closest near miss?

Have a great night.

It's been emotional.

Crikey, Simon, some awkward ones there.

Think I'd best swerve "best & worst" guests......

Amongst the better ones were Tim Lovejoy, Oliver Spencer, the boxer, & a few footballers.  

As to worst, no names, but some of the poker players we had on were a disaster, unable to recognize an open or closed question, monosyllabic, & frankly without an ounce of social skills or grace. Some great exceptions, though, Kevin Allen for example. (and many others, too many to mention).

Fave interview? Too many to remember really, but Annette was enjoyable each time, I really like her, ditto Daniel Negreanu.  

Worst interview - not even close - was Phil Ivey.  He was with Tilt at the time, & has been forced to do it by them. It was so bad I don't even think we showed it. No grace, no manners, no humour, no convo.

Diva? Well Helen Chamberlain was interesting. She is extremely strong-minded, & everything has to be done her way. We were in the Studio one evening & were called to do Rehearsal, & the Director says "come on, let's get started". Quick as a flash, Helen retorted, "YOU lot can go to rehearsal, I'm watching the fist half of the England game thank you very much, so you can all **** off". Having said that, an absolute top top pro, & I loved working with her, even though it was not really mutual, & she preferred to work with others, mainly Nick Wealthall & Matt Broughton.  Ho hum.

Of screen though, we got on famously, & I adored her. Saw her last week actually, filming some Xmas stuff for soccer AM, with all the Sky Sports football pundits, Neville, Carragher & Co.  

Great answer. Thank you.

To be fair, Matt Broughton WAS good, though. Always enjoyed reading his articles and his sharp sense of humour on screen. I can well imagine he was a character behind the scenes.

Nick Wealthall one of those "Whatever happened to..?" people. Shame he faded into obscurity after Sky Poker TV.