Vegas & The Aftermath - Diary

[JaffaCake]

I think the Poker Philanthropist could be a new nickname for you, perhaps you could get Banksy to spraypaint it on the side of your Hummer? Wondered what you were going to call the yips in poker, whatever they are a few of us have them right now. Speaking of snooker yips, did you know Iwan Jones, the original and only Welsh Wizard (so tilting when they call Roberto that) was a pro snooker player in his youth, played all the big boys, even managed a 147, before he got the yips.

He stopped playing and never picked up a cue again til we got to Turcs & Caicos for a tourney where there wasn't much to do so I persuaded him to play pool. He's still really good mates with Matthew Stevens, we all went out one night in Cardiff and ended up in one of those Elbow Room type bars with pool tables. We all took it in turns to play winner stays on apart from Matthew, who reckoned he'd never once played a game of pool and didn't intend to start now, his reasoning being with pockets that big how could u ever miss a shot. Needs lessons in hustling.

Why are so many poker players good at snooker and pool? James Akenhead beat Ken Doherty at the WPT in Ireland. I remember Nik Persaud beating Skalie at the WSOP after the Ladbrokes party (and free bar). Skalie was hard up and offered Nik 10% of his main event which started a few days later, think the debt was $500. Nik refused, said he'd wait for the cash. Skalie cashed for $1.25million. Mind u, some of us also turned down the chance to buy 10% at cost price ffs.

Lin got taken to school last night, best not to talk about it

[Marky147]

Conor Tate is another too Jeff and you didn't even slip a T&C brag in there

Some trip that was and just getting out was a result........

[DMorgan]

Click to see full-size image.

[nirvana]

I also enjoy anything related to transport, industry, business, people, nature, wildlife, ducks, RT buses, railways, bridges, concrete, music, & I am an accomplished photographer.

I like this line a lot :-)

[bobby1]

Cupcake is also really good snooker player, I think he used to play some cash games around London in his youth.

[TightEnd]

Thouroughly recommend "Four Year Plan" the Briatore/QPR film on BBC now on IPlayer. Staggering watch

Empire episode 2 on BBC1 last night now IPlayer was excellent. A long section on the building of the "Lunatic Line" from Mombasa to Lake Victoria over 600 miles in Uganda/Kenya

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uganda_Railway

32,000 Indians were brought to Africa by the Brits to build it, they civil engineered and built 1200 bridges along the route and 2500 workers died, some at the mouths of Man Eating Lions.

Well worth a watch.

[tikay]

Will catch up on replies soonest, but meanwhile......

I just read in e-Gaming Review - subscribe now, or wait until Lord Carter wrrtes his piece! - that "Shuffle Master" have purchased the Ongame Network from Bwin/Party for about £19 million, with some possible contigency amounts on top.

Ongame is the 5th largest network, & the sellers - Bwin/Party - paid just shy of £500 million for it, in 2005.

Click to see full-size image.

[cambridgealex]

so they paid 500m for it, and sold it for 19m? Have I understood that correctly? Wow if so...

[AndrewT]

so they paid 500m for it, and sold it for 19m? Have I understood that correctly? Wow if so...

They bought Pokerroom (which was huge at the time). But then a couple of months later UIGEA happened and Pokerroom had a lot of US business...

So the two aren't directly comparable.

[tikay]

so they paid 500m for it, and sold it for 19m? Have I understood that correctly? Wow if so...

If I read it correctly, yes, though I'd always defer to AndrewT & others on matters of clarification in the Online Gaming industry.

As he notes,  UIGEA sort of moved the goalposts. A bit.

Happy to be corrected, & aplologise, if I misread or misintepreted the article.

[AlunB]

It's a nonsense comparison as Andrew says. At the time Ongame as we know it today was about 25% of the business. The rest was US-facing poker rooms. And they were what Bwin bought it for, as well as owning its own tech. And post-UIGEA the price was reduced quite substantially.

A more interesting and relevant comparison is the price IGT paid for Entraction.

[AlunB]

Having said all that you have to say they still took a bath on it. Although opening negotiations by effectively saying 'alright we don't want this, does anyone else?' may not have been the smartest sales technique...

[tikay]

It's a nonsense comparison as Andrew says. At the time Ongame as we know it today was about 25% of the business. The rest was US-facing poker rooms. And they were what Bwin bought it for, as well as owning its own tech. And post-UIGEA the price was reduced quite substantially.

A more interesting and relevant comparison is the price IGT paid for Entraction.

My apologies, then, if I misread the EGR article.

I'm fairly certain that it said that the value of the network had dipped by 95% since 2005, though I can see how that comparision is misleading.

[Chompy]

Cupcake is also really good snooker player, I think he used to play some cash games around London in his youth.

Kevin O'Leary too. And Lutoner Dominic Ricepierse was a pro when younger. Can't play poker though. I've been known to knock in the odd hundo also. Can't play poker though.

[tikay]

Having said all that you have to say they still took a bath on it. Although opening negotiations by effectively saying 'alright we don't want this, does anyone else?' may not have been the smartest sales technique...

Umm, yes, I was sort of trying, cooyily wooyily, to allude to that.....whatever way you cut it, it turned out to be expensive. Nobody could have foreseen UIGEA, but it is a fact of life, it damaged Shareholder value significantly. It matters not to shareholders "why", the value has disappeared, end of.

What is the attraction, or synergy, to Shuffle-Master, who are, as far as I am aware, land-based? Grow the business, run it as a cash-cow, or something else?