Vegas & The Aftermath - Diary

[tikay]

What did u mean 'not a man to get on the wrong side of though' if you don't mind elaborating.

Neil is a v nice guy and I like him a lot but of all the people in poker I'm not sure neil would be one ppl fear to cross.

It's just an old-fashioned expression. It means (roughly), he'd be a good friend & a bad enemy, imo. And yes, I like him a lot, too. It's not in any way a derogatory thing.

[GreekStein]

Lol I know it wasn't derogatory. I juist didn't know if it was one of tikays uber subtle 'channing is staked by the mafia - don't mess' or that uve taken his black belt ninja status as a sign of his ultimate fighting prowess.

[tikay]

http://www.touchline.tv/golf/sky-muscle-in-on-us-masters-golf

Sky Sports have acquired exclusive UK coverage of the opening two rounds of the US masters from 2011, making it the only destination to see all four days of the tournament live.

This is obviously old news but I've only just become aware of it as Sky have been advertising coverage.
Who will be watching in 3D?

Thanks, Vince. I did not know that, & I'm a little bit sad in a way, the BBC have covered The Masters so well, for so long.

Henry Longhurst, no less, became a great hero of American TV Viewers when he commentated for the BBC on The Masters, & he had his "own hole" for, I think, 17 years. In his first year, the American TV coverage of his commentary aroused incrediblty strong negative feeling, as Henry was apt to say nothing for long spells, & let the picture tell the story. Eventually, the Americans warmed to him, & he ended up as their darling.

He was The Sunday Times golf corresondent for, I think, 40 years or more, & he lived in a pair of converted windmills in the Sussex Downs called "Jack & Jill". (Converted, peculiarly, by the same architect who designed Brighton Marina). He wrote many books, far & away the best was his auti-bio, "My Life & Soft Times", which is quite the loveliest book you could ever read, & gets his humility & gratitude for life across so well. As a child, I so wanted to be Henry Longhurst, he was my hero.

He ran with E M Swanton & Alastair Cooke. Some company, that.

He is credited with coining several well-known gold expressions, including.....

"They say 'practice makes perfect.' Of course, it doesn't. For the vast majority of golfers it merely consolidates imperfection"

“Although golf was originally restricted to wealthy, overweight Protestants, today it's open to anybody who owns hideous clothing.”

“Golf is a game in which the slowest people in the world are those in front of you, and the fastest are those behind”

Here's Jack & Jill.

[tikay]

Lol I know it wasn't derogatory. I juist didn't know if it was one of tikays uber subtle 'channing is staked by the mafia - don't mess' or that uve taken his black belt ninja status as a sign of his ultimate fighting prowess.

Nope, none of those things, just what it said.

[The Camel]

Channing on Thursday will be good, he talks for England, good stuff too. I interviewed him once in Vegas, I just said, "Hi Neil, how's it going?" & he spoke without taking breath for 23 minutes flat. Good stuff, too, he has a really expressive voice, & talks with such originality. For one so well known & high profile, he seems almost universally popular. I've never had any financial dealings with him, but I get the impression he is 100% straight with money. Not a man to get wrong side of, though, I imagine. I might be the only Live Poker player never been staked by him, too. He's a shrewd judge.

I can beat that, he once rung me, didn't even give me a chance to say hello, started talking for 30 minutes then hung up, I am almost certain I never asked him a single question. Also a good interview.

One of my friends answered the phone and it was Neil.

He said "hello" and Neil was off and running without drawing breath.

He was desperate for a piss and kept trying to interupt Neil to say, "hold on a minute I need to use the loo"

In the end he gave up and just laid the phone down and went.

3 minutes later he picked the phone up again and Neil hadn't noticed he had gone!

[tikay]

After so many years during which I resolutely stayed away from The Vic, because of what I perceived to be poor customer service, (particularly at Reception) I enjoyed playing there back in November, & last week, whilst there on TSP duties, I could not help but be impres ed by how good it has become. Maybe I was wrong all along, but it seems so much better now, & they ran the GUKPT faultlessly, or nearly so.

We did an Interview with Russell Tamplin, "National Poker Manager" for Grosvenor, & he's clearly pulling up a few trees.

Jeff Leigh taking over as GUKPT Tour Manager will be interesting. Jeff is a very strong character, a good Manager, & not one I've always seen eye to eye with, but he deffo is right for that job, & folks will get no change out of arguing with him, no matter who they are. He looked after me a treat last week, too, I was having internet access problems, & despite being mega-busy with GUKPT stuff, he sorted me out.

More interesting was the news that they plan to completely revamp The Vic Cardroom, with a 50 Table room. It's always chockablock at the mo, & I think that will work well. Londoners are starved of good (regulated) poker venues. It only seems a few years since The Vic Cardroom was downstairs, in three different areas.

I may start playing there more often in future.

Always good to see guys like Jeff Duvall there, too, sitting at the PLO game. I often think I'd like someone to "think out loud" to teach me certain things. Flushy at Hi-Lo would be another, though there are many different subjects & peeps I'd love to do that with.

I asked Jeff about a few interesting PLO hands he played whilst I was rubber-necking, & his explanations were superb, & were in language I could understand. He seems to do "nicely", year in year out, despite being fairly advanced in years. He told me he's swerving Vegas come WSOP time this year, as he has a bit of a bee in his bonnet about Harrahs. Or, if you prefer, Caesars Entertainment, as I believe they are now called. He was an epic fail, though, when I asked him about triple range merging. Tsk, tsk.

Jeff has an amazing selection of daft hats, & he's one of those peeps who can get away with wearing hats which would invoke mirth if anyone else wore them. Top bloke. I wonder how long he's been playing? He just sits there quietly, missing nothing, & saying very little.

[tikay]

Evening Grandad,

First time on lappy with proper internet tonight since the weekend.

Just wanted to say thank you and well done for a great day at the Sky comp on Saturday. The comp itself was great fun, with people of different standards, but was played in great spirit. You know I'm a fan of anti-railing, I think it's fun, in a twisted way, and I loved your anti-railing of me when I was all in near the bubble with KK v A 10. There were a few bemused faces, but I think they got it in the end.

Also, well done to Tighty, blandie, Claire Motherhen, that other bird that had the hots for me, and that young guy who joined recently on YTS, forgot his name, but you know who I mean, tall, white shirt, head of poker or summit.

And well done to the G staff and management. They get a lot of stick, and I haven't been their biggest fan recently, after years of defending them on here, I was getting a bit frustrated, but they all done a great job at the weekend.

Oh, and when a player hasn't had a cup of tea for an hour, and asks you to get him one, threatening to throw them out of the comp with 15 players left isn't really good for customer relations is it? After all, it's good practice for Vegas!

Ps, how cool was it to see the sicilian bubble the final table?

Thanks, Vinni, & yes, G-Luton nailed it.

The young YTS chap, aged about 12, has been my boss for the last year or so, & he recruited me into my main job at Sky Poker. His name is Richard Milner, & today, he officially takes over as "Head of Poker" at Sky Poker. I'm delighted for him, but a bit sad, for selfish reasons, too. We chatted on Friday & he told me "you are not escaping me, you are coming with me". Whatever, but he'll do well, I'm convinced of that.

[tikay]

I've just read this article about the LHC. Basically scientists reckon they might be able to use it to detect particles that it will make at some point in the future.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/03/16/lhc_singlet_theory/

Pretty mind blowing if it works!

"If", yes.

Do you ever suspect, just a teeny-weeny bit, that this stuff is like the Emporor's suit of clothes, & is all just nonsense? That the whole thing is a hoax? I have read every book I can on these things, & I have to say, a little bit of me says it's all made up, & they are having a laugh at our expense. Either that or they are out-thinking themselves, or, in my case, ignorance is bliss. If I'd seen "triple range merging" in there I may just have flipped. I guess I just can't quite come to terms with how clever these people all are. Probably. Maybe.

Gotta love this stuff though. It makes about as much sense as baseball stats, but it's equally compulsive. I think if I ever understod it, it'd lose it's interest. Some chance of that.

"....This thinking relies on the idea that the 4-D continuum we can perceive exists within a 10- or 11-dimensional universe, rather as a flat two-dimensional membrane could float suspended in normal three-d space. Versions of the so-called "M-theory" in physics hold that this is the case, but that almost all kinds of forces, waves, particles etc are stuck to the four-dimensional membrane, aka the "brane" for short.

Higgs singlets and possibly certain other things might be exceptions to the general rule, not stuck to the brane like almost everything else. Weiler and Ho are already quite well known for suggesting back in 2007 that a type of special neutrino could do this. Thus, if their theories are correct, the LHC might soon detect Higgs singlets popping back onto the brane before the collision which generated them.

Weiler insists that proper speculo-fiction time travel, faster-than-light transport etc still isn't on as only ultra-bizarro sub-subatomic particles can perform these extradimensional feats. However he does raise the possibilities of communication using such particles......."

Exactly that.

[tikay]

Watched the whole show last night for the first time, highlight was Barry`s deadpan  "Who`s Elizabeth Taylor"  wp Barry.

The power of suggestion got me to reg for the vlv qtr which had a happy ending, despite TK handing out strat advice on the pure bubble 

Will watch/donate more in future, especially after seeing all the featured hands 

!

You deffo chose a "good" night to watch. Some of the play was quite interesting, to say the least.

These are mostly recreational players, though, & they pay their money, so we never mock, but getting the basics across is quite hard, & it's painful to see such basic errors repeated time & time again. But that's the thing with poker, on any night, ANY player can win a Tourney, & no matter how good other players may think they are, the newbies & recreationals always have a decent shot at it, if the cards run kindly.

The daftest thing I ever heard, though, was someone say "I'd play on Sky Poker because the players are so terribad, but I don't like the software". So, presumably, he plays somewhere where he cannot win so much, or even win at all.  But the software is better. Go figure.

I was indisposed last nught, & have been for a few days, dare I ask how you got on in the Semi-Final?

[tikay]

And a great speech from Sam Walley-Cohen. Kid's game the Gold Cup these days. Awesome effort from Kauto. Hope he's retired now.

Looking back, I think that was maybe the best Cheltenham Fessie I've ever seen, though it helps that I no longer view it through my pocket, via betting slips. I went every year for a decade or more, & remember (it was only 3 days at the time) twice going the whole three days without backing a winner, so I never enjoyed those years, which of course is daft. Now, without having a bet, I can enjoy it so much more, so maybe my line is lop-sided.

The heavies covered it well, too, none better than Jim White, in the Daily Telegraph, who summed up the week like this. What a fine piece of writing, too. Peeps write to me every week asking how they can be a journo, & with due respect, how would I know?, but they can do worse than read & learn from articles like this. Superb.

"......As the Gold Cup contenders galloped up the final hill, as a seismic roar issued from 60,000 throats, as the spring sun shone down, there at the front were Kauto Star and Denman. It was the old guard, the formerly untouchable dual hegemony of jump racing once again contesting the lead. After missing out last year, what a prospect it was as they approached the end: the boys were back in town.

But then, just as the old rivalry was seemingly about to be contested right up to the finish line, as the equine Ali traded slug for slug with the four-legged Foreman (and don't ask which is which), from nowhere, chewing up the ground at a record pace, the young pretender eased past and – to hats flung and betting slips ripped up – Long Run, galloped through.

It was a finale appropriate to a week of racing that contained all you could wish for in a sporting event: mysterious no-shows, dramatic comebacks, fairytale wins for the little guy. And, at the last, a sense of renewal in the arrival of a new hero.

Plus, in the same race, there was the sight of Sir Alex Ferguson coming fourth in a sporting event. And looking thrilled to have done that well.

There grew up, when the Festival extended its running time from three to four days back in 2005, a widespread worry that the content had been spread too thin, that the addition of five races to the programme would dilute the quality of an event which has long considered itself the world championship of its sport. After this week, in which the crowds pouring through the turnstiles never dipped below 50,000, there were few who would subscribe to that view. This was a Festival in which the action was as sustained as it was thrilling.

Not that you would imagine it would turn out like that at the start. On the first day, Binocular, the feisty favourite for the Champion Hurdle, was removed from the card at the final moment. For many – not least a hugely disappointed AP McCoy who was scheduled to ride it – this was the banker bet of the Festival.

The lateness of his withdrawl meant that much energy was consumed arguing with bookies about the return of stakes. That it was all the result of a medicine mix-up that appeared to be more cack-handed than underhand added to the sense of dismay.

But then, the Irish took control. Guinness has always coursed through Cheltenham's veins (not to mention its bladders). This is an event that matters to those journeying across the Irish Sea: there is a nationalistic fervour in their support, a sense it is all that is bolstering a faltering economy. So when Irish horses won six races on Wednesday, the over-excited visitors in various shades of green went barmy, if not blarney. Suddenly, the atmosphere, which had seemed a little mute in the shadow of Binocular's non-appearance, was ratcheted up to 11.

And as well as the horses, the Irish riders took the ascendant. Ruby Walsh, out of the sport for four months with a wretched leg break, returned with winner after winner. AP McCoy broke his own record by riding his 201st winner of the season. The pair then contrived a breathtaking finish in Friday's Vincent O'Brien County Handicap Hurdle. Aboard Get Me Out Of Here, McCoy appeared to have things sealed, ahead all the way. But then, on the line, Walsh suddenly appeared at his side. A photo was required to reveal Walsh's mount a fraction ahead.

"It's all in the nose," said Walsh. Also in the horse's name: Final Approach, his was called. And Walsh made his count.

There were other tales too: JP McManus, the Irish owner who regards Cheltenham as the single most important week of his year, failed to win a race for the first time in 10 Festivals. In contrast, Pat Rodford, trainer at a tiny, 10-horse yard in Somerset, watched joyfully as Holmwood Legend came home a 25-1 winner in the Byrne Group Plate on Thursday. It was Rodford's first ever winner in a 25 year association with Cheltenham. It will be his last, too: he retires this year.

Then there was Nicky Henderson, whose week had begun in shuffling embarrassment at the withdrawl of Binocular, concluding his Festival by seeing Long Run trump the old guard in the Gold Cup. As a paradigm of Cheltenham's ever-intriguing vagaries that could not be bettered. Nobody, with the possible exception of the bookmaker who gleefully condescends to accept my investment, comes to Prestbury Park with any certainty of how things will unfold. And that glory is more intact after this year than ever.

Not that the week was without its moments of farce, from the royal arrival of Jordan, to the relentless grind of the grid-locked car parks. And for one man, it almost ended in accident and emergency. This was the spectator who ran on to the course during Thursday's Ryanair Stakes and narrowly avoided a life-threatening shoeing by a volley of passing hooves. It turned out this was not a drunken lark, but a soberly deliberate act. The intruder was making a protest at the budget airline. Though apparently the man thought he was running on to the track at Aintree. This being Ryanair, however, he found himself 160 miles away at Cheltenham......"

[tikay]

I wonder how many enjoy Cheltenham Fessie for the spectacle it is, & how many see it as just a betting medium, albeit a fantastic one?

I'm trying to think of a more picturesque venue for a major event watched live by about 200,000 people.

When I was a regular attendee, I was on the course every morning at first light, to watch them gallop, & even in the Car Park, seeing all the horse boxes of the famous yards arrive.

I would think Ralphy boy probably enjoys the best of both worlds, though in his case, he is exceedingly old.

My worst memory of Chelters was when we built the then new Stand, & HM The Queen Mother attended, da de da, & the toilets all flooded, & backed up. Everywhere. 

Or the year we laid out a new Car Park (I was sub-contract to Taylor-Woodrow at the time) & it rained cats & dogs all Day One, & alll the cars got stuck. I think we ordered 20,000 tonnes of graded stone that night, & all the local suppliers jacked up their prices, & had a field day. GG my budget.

I hope Cheltenham never changes.

[tikay]

http://www.touchline.tv/golf/sky-muscle-in-on-us-masters-golf

Sky Sports have acquired exclusive UK coverage of the opening two rounds of the US masters from 2011, making it the only destination to see all four days of the tournament live.

This is obviously old news but I've only just become aware of it as Sky have been advertising coverage.
Who will be watching in 3D?

Golf in 3D is pants

Why is that? Genuine question, as I don't have 3D Telly, & I don't really know what it does.

When I retire, I suppose I'll have to get HD Telly, I'm told it's amazing, but I really don't know what 3-D telly is supposed to do. Do I have to sit there in daft spectacles?

[tikay]

Big "well done" to Praz for winning the GUKPT thing, he's come a long way in a very short time. Not an opponent you want on the Table, I'd say, I think I'd just close my eyes & jam all-in, he never has it. Except when he has Raised with J-T, & it comes 7-8-9. I think he pushed young Cottonbud around a bit, & it'll do James the world of good to learn from, it's never a bad thing to be shown how it's done by a master. Praz gets inside people's heads, too, tilts them up, which is incredibly important at that level.

WP to Karl, & Jeff Kimber, too, close but no cigar on this occasion.

I read somewhere that this was Jeff's sixth GUKPT Final Table. He must be so lucky......

The 2 hour cash bubble must have been hilarious, with one player begging for the clock to be paused, "we've been playing two days, come on, be fair", & Jeff, Karl, & Co taking it in turns to nick the Blinds hand after hand. Cruel game, poker, but the better players just get the job done.

[pokerfan]

Watched the whole show last night for the first time, highlight was Barry`s deadpan  "Who`s Elizabeth Taylor"  wp Barry.

The power of suggestion got me to reg for the vlv qtr which had a happy ending, despite TK handing out strat advice on the pure bubble 

Will watch/donate more in future, especially after seeing all the featured hands 

!

You deffo chose a "good" night to watch. Some of the play was quite interesting, to say the least.

These are mostly recreational players, though, & they pay their money, so we never mock, but getting the basics across is quite hard, & it's painful to see such basic errors repeated time & time again. But that's the thing with poker, on any night, ANY player can win a Tourney, & no matter how good other players may think they are, the newbies & recreationals always have a decent shot at it, if the cards run kindly.

The daftest thing I ever heard, though, was someone say "I'd play on Sky Poker because the players are so terribad, but I don't like the software". So, presumably, he plays somewhere where he cannot win so much, or even win at all.  But the software is better. Go figure.

I was indisposed last nught, & have been for a few days, dare I ask how you got on in the Semi-Final?

I did a bink. 

[JaffaCake]

Big "well done" to Praz for winning the GUKPT thing, he's come a long way in a very short time. Not an opponent you want on the Table, I'd say, I think I'd just close my eyes & jam all-in, he never has it. Except when he has Raised with J-T, & it comes 7-8-9. I think he pushed young Cottonbud around a bit, & it'll do James the world of good to learn from, it's never a bad thing to be shown how it's done by a master. Praz gets inside people's heads, too, tilts them up, which is incredibly important at that level.

WP to Karl, & Jeff Kimber, too, close but no cigar on this occasion.

I read somewhere that this was Jeff's sixth GUKPT Final Table. He must be so lucky......

The 2 hour cash bubble must have been hilarious, with one player begging for the clock to be paused, "we've been playing two days, come on, be fair", & Jeff, Karl, & Co taking it in turns to nick the Blinds hand after hand. Cruel game, poker, but the better players just get the job done.

Thanks boss....not sure I got that lucky to be fair tho probs badbeated someone who reads your diary along the way so I won't grumble. Interesting the amount of really great players in this comp, I mean the younger guys, and yet they all seemed to fall by the wayside. Praz ran really well, but he plays so good, I think he must be the best like tournament player in the UK, don't think he gets the credit he deserves. He's like a sports car the way he just cruises into top gear without anyone really noticing, next thing u see he has the tourney by the scruff of the neck. Guess for the rest of us we're lucky he doesn't always focus like he should and give it his best every time coz when he's in the mood he's really hard to stop.
Playing comps comes in fits and starts for us all, I really think u generally get close a few times before winning one, and u know you're playing well....I got deep in ukipt manc, then deeper here....gonna find out what odds I am for the Irish Open. If it's good enough for don channing-ole it's good enough for me...