Vegas & The Aftermath - Diary

[GreekStein]

as much as I love to rib you for your nittyness, that seems like it was probably a good fold.

Yay!

I'm just not sure what else he can come back at me with there. A-K, I suppose, but he knows how nitty I am, & when I do the comedy min-raise, I'm pretty sure he was mentally high-fiving - got him!

Meant to ask - how did meeeting up with your Sister go? Emotional, I bet. I know you Greek persons.

I was shocked at how big she'd got. When I left she was still a little girl! Now a young lady!

She still cried like a baby. I was cool as a cucumber.

[tikay]

as much as I love to rib you for your nittyness, that seems like it was probably a good fold.

Yay!

I'm just not sure what else he can come back at me with there. A-K, I suppose, but he knows how nitty I am, & when I do the comedy min-raise, I'm pretty sure he was mentally high-fiving - got him!

Meant to ask - how did meeeting up with your Sister go? Emotional, I bet. I know you Greek persons.

I was shocked at how big she'd got. When I left she was still a little girl! Now a young lady!

She still cried like a baby. I was cool as a cucumber.

I am NEVER folding there.

[Rod Paradise]

Thanks Rod.

Am planning my next trip to north west Scotland in late September or early October, so I might just drop in on the way North. Last time, stopped over at Loch Lomond, just to break the long drive really, & it was rather nice to have an overnight break, then the holiday “proper” stats next day, on that beautiful road North up to Fort William & beyond.

Was interested in the word “tercel” which I had not seen before. I looked it up, & it’s origin seems cloudy…..thought this was quite interesting….

The traditional term for a male falcon is tercel or tiercel, from Latin tertius = third, because of the belief that only one in three eggs hatched a male bird.
Some sources give the etymology as deriving from the fact that a male falcon is approximately one third smaller than the female.

That photo you posted – for some odd reason it reminded me of the view from the train as you pass over the Tweed, at Berwick.

Click to see full-size image.

My spellchecker wanted to change it from tiercel which is the way I spelled it - that's apparently the American way - FML (probably from books when I was a kid in Bermuda - a lot of the books we got were American - so I've both ways of spelling in my head).

Was a great weekend for bird-spotting, lapwings (or peezies as we call them) curlews (whaups), oystercatchers, grouse, the short eared owls, peregrines, and typically not a picture out of it.....

[Marky147]

That's some great going on the diet front congrats!!

TYVM.

I've really enjoyed it immensely.

It's an endless circle for me, lose it, pile it back on, lose it......

It will always be so, too.

I've been the same since 2008 bouncing around from 17 down to 14 and then back up every year.....

[tikay]

Just to conclude my rather poor performance at the DTD £500.

I peaked at 45,000 quite early, I just hit a lot of hands, including two sets & 2 houses, 9's full besting A-A or K-K I gather, & got paid every street by the poor chap.

It all went a bit downhill then.

I was trying to play more aggressively, & it just kept going wrong. In consecutive hands, UTG & UTG+1, I found 3-3, & 6-6, with an aggro table lined up behind me. What do you do with these hands? I raised each time, got multi action, & we saw flops & boards which were mostly paint. I tried leading the flop both times, & was accommodated with alacrity, then had to shut down. In BOTH cases my hand got totally counterfeited & was not even playing by the river, 6-6 on a board of A-T-9-A-T is a bit tough for me to play oop. I made a feeble attempt to bluff the latter, & soon got shown the folly of my ways. 

I just sort of kept playing, but nothing was going right, probably a mixture of slight run-bad & less slight inadequate game, I'm not really sure.

Eventually I was in my usual territory, playing 25 or 30 bigs, when I got moved to Table Rasta......this I like, & I was pretty sure he'd give me action fairly wide, I just needed a hand or two to hold.

I arrived to find a three way all-in between Rasta, Lucky Mc Bride, & Alan Stearn, & much hooting & hollering.

Rasta & Lucky had both flopped sets, (7's for Rasta, 5's for Lucky), whilst Alan Stearn's Aces were out with the washing.  Rasta was shouting at the top of his voice - & I do mean shouting, & as I was carrying a minor headache, it was a little too loud for my comfort, but he means no harm, & just gets excited.

He was abusing the other two guys (mock abusing, I assume), "YOU CANNOT BEAT ME", and I'm sat there thinking "careful Mr Rasta, karma is an evil bitch", & lo & behold, Alan Stearn 4 flushed it, to huge roars from a big rail of gawpers.  Rasta then went quiet. For fully 2 minutes.

I soon tangled with the Great Man, too, having raised with KQ & Rasta looked me up, exactly as expected. Are we going anywhere on a K-Q-5 flop? Nope. What about K-Q-5-5? Less happy, but still think (hope) we are good, he will overvalue his (assumed) 2 pair here. He bet big on the river, now I'm not quite so happy, or confident, but it's Rasta, he can have anything here, never mind all this "ascribe a range" stuff. I called his overbet & got shown 5-6.  Think I got outplayed there......

Now playing 15 bigs, sheesh, I'm back where I usually am, Rasta is bossing the table, which means we can gamble with him, he'll look me up very wide.

He raises for the nth hand in a row, I have A-J suited, this is simple enough, I decided to jam knowing he'd very likely look me up wide. That is when it all went horribly wrong.....       

Suddenly, Mr Tight as a Tight Thing re-jams, whoops, we must be in shocking shape, & even Rasta quickly folds 9-9 face up. We have walked into Kings, Goodnight Irene, the rub coming in the fact that I flopped my Jack, & would have got my 2xup v Mr Rasta.

My thinking was correct, but I need to work on my timing.

We shall burn another £500 in the June WSOP style affair, no doubt.

No complaints though. Had a wonderful day, with some grand table company. Played as well as I'm able, too.   

[tikay]

Some of the PLO advice was fairly wongy to be honest, wouldn't blame u if u got wingy after that

Only SOME was wrong?

High praise indeed.

In reality, I rarely give hand advice, except when asked, I prefer to discuss the mental side, how to cope with losing, imploring newcomers not to be overly swayed by all the Level 5 stuff they read. 

With a player base that is, for the most part, relatively new to poker, many of them strugggle with losing, beats, or "bad beats" as they see them. Any drawing hand which hits is a "bad beat" to a newbie. They blame the other player ("there are SO many bad players on your site"), which is a bit sad to see, not to say woefully misguided, the "Sky/Stars/Ladbrokes River" & so when it gets to discussing Omaha, I try to prepare them for the fact that the swings & swongs in Hold Em are nothing compared to Omaha.  How many times have you seen "it is SO RIGGED" just because some chap lost a hand of poker?!

They take up Omaha, & often complain that the villain "called when drawing" (!), followed by the inevitable sarcy chat box comment "nice catch", which ranks 2nd only to "zzzzzz" when some poor sod has disconnected. I enjoy trying to help though, & it is immensely satisfying when someone writes to me & thanks me. I would not swap my position with anyone, anywhere, in poker, & just dropped into the right slot, at the right time.

We get a lot of people saying "you should promote Omaha more". Well if I had my way, I'd only ever play Omaha & never play another hand of Texas, but the facts don't lie - no matter what site you play on, barely 5% of the action is Omaha, so why waste promotional puff, money & noise on it?

Wholly unrelated, but......

I assume you noted Ladbrokes results last week - yet again, a 30% decline in the Quarter. All rather sad, it has been like that for 2 or 3 years now. The music will have to stop eventually.

Titan have now stopped all "Pro" Sponsorship, too.

Purple Lounge closed last week, too, with barely a word of dissent from those who have lost all their deposits on that site.

Times are tough out there, except for the innovators, & those with a USP, who make the effort to come up with bundles of fresh stuff. I think a lot of the rooms & skins will just be deemed "cash cows" now.

Boom, bomb & bust. 

[tonytats]

Ladbrokes used to have a good base of players ,and lots of good comps , I'm not sure where they went wrong ? Maybe when I stopped playing on there the value went ?
How did your tesco opticians experience go ? I got my new glasses yesterday ,from there and have done for a while

[AlunB]

Wholly unrelated, but......

I assume you noted Ladbrokes results last week - yet again, a 30% decline in the Quarter. All rather sad, it has been like that for 2 or 3 years now. The music will have to stop eventually.

Titan have now stopped all "Pro" Sponsorship, too.

Purple Lounge closed last week, too, with barely a word of dissent from those who have lost all their deposits on that site.

Times are tough out there, except for the innovators, & those with a USP, who make the effort to come up with bundles of fresh stuff. I think a lot of the rooms & skins will just be deemed "cash cows" now.

Boom, bomb & bust. 

What amazes me is that casino continues to grow while poker declines. Why is this? Have casino games fundamentally changed? Has the consumer? No. Have they innovated and made the games slicker, faster and in-browser rather than tied to download applications? Yes. Have they advertised them heavily on the TV in the UK? Yes.

Chances of these lessons being learned and applied to poker? About zero.

[tikay]

Ladbrokes used to have a good base of players ,and lots of good comps , I'm not sure where they went wrong ? Maybe when I stopped playing on there the value went ?
How did your tesco opticians experience go ? I got my new glasses yesterday ,from there and have done for a while

Not sure where it all went wrong with Laddies. It was my - & many others - favourite site for many a year. They had some terrific Tourneys, too. I always played (after I retired) the afternoon $8,000 Guaranteed ($220 to enter, I think), then they halved the g'tee, & the Tourney died. The "Daddy", & the monthly Biggie were always very good, too.

The software was lovely & smooth (for the time), a really nice interface.

Then they changed networks, which was such a shame, & it all sort of went downhill from there. To be fair, around that time, I got involved in some commercial work with DTD, APAT, & Sky, so it was not so easy for me to continue on Laddies, the old hat-juggling got a bit awkward. I believe (apologies if wrong) that Sky Poker are now bigger than Ladbrokes Poker, which is mind-blowing when you reflect on where both were 5 or 6 years ago. An ever-changing landscape.

Laddies were very good to me, too, even gave me a freebie Caribbean Cruise, which was a whole other story, as it all went a bit tiddley-poo. Until the year before last, they allowed us to use their Vegas WSOP Players Lounge for filming, too, which was most kind of them. I think Player Lounges @ WSOP are a thing of the past now, though.

Tesco's Opticians? Superb! The Staff were a bit lacking in basic Customer Care - no eye-contact (an Optician with no eye-contact, lol....), but they were very thorough, gave me a good eye-test & everything, & the price was abouit one third of what I paid last time at Vision Express or Specsavers, whatever.

They pissed me off by asking loads of personal details, such as my 'phone number & stuff, so I threw a mini-strop, eventually relenting. They said the new bins would take 10 days, & exactly 10 days later, I got a text from them (hence needing my 'phone number), "your new Spectacles are awaiting you".  I went across, was in & out in minutes, & the new bins are perfect. Kinda helps when everything is not blurred, to be honest, everything looks better now, I've even discovered HD tele! 

PS - pardon my stupidfity/rudeness/memory, but did we bump into each other @ DTD on Saturday?

[tikay]

Wholly unrelated, but......

I assume you noted Ladbrokes results last week - yet again, a 30% decline in the Quarter. All rather sad, it has been like that for 2 or 3 years now. The music will have to stop eventually.

Titan have now stopped all "Pro" Sponsorship, too.

Purple Lounge closed last week, too, with barely a word of dissent from those who have lost all their deposits on that site.

Times are tough out there, except for the innovators, & those with a USP, who make the effort to come up with bundles of fresh stuff. I think a lot of the rooms & skins will just be deemed "cash cows" now.

Boom, bomb & bust. 

What amazes me is that casino continues to grow while poker declines. Why is this? Have casino games fundamentally changed? Has the consumer? No. Have they innovated and made the games slicker, faster and in-browser rather than tied to download applications? Yes. Have they advertised them heavily on the TV in the UK? Yes.

Chances of these lessons being learned and applied to poker? About zero.

I would assume because that, in relative terms, poker is pretty small beer compared to Casino & Betting. It was in the numbers, & I forget now, but if Poker is, say, 5% of the business as a whole, it makes little sense to divert management & promotional resource to it.  Which is why I assume they will get rid, eventually.

Must be said, I loathe with a passion their TV ad for betting, it does my head in!

[tikay]

Wholly unrelated, but......

I assume you noted Ladbrokes results last week - yet again, a 30% decline in the Quarter. All rather sad, it has been like that for 2 or 3 years now. The music will have to stop eventually.

Titan have now stopped all "Pro" Sponsorship, too.

Purple Lounge closed last week, too, with barely a word of dissent from those who have lost all their deposits on that site.

Times are tough out there, except for the innovators, & those with a USP, who make the effort to come up with bundles of fresh stuff. I think a lot of the rooms & skins will just be deemed "cash cows" now.

Boom, bomb & bust. 

What amazes me is that casino continues to grow while poker declines. Why is this? Have casino games fundamentally changed? Has the consumer? No. Have they innovated and made the games slicker, faster and in-browser rather than tied to download applications? Yes. Have they advertised them heavily on the TV in the UK? Yes.

Chances of these lessons being learned and applied to poker? About zero.

Slight divert here.

Did you see that Lock Poker/Cake Poker Press Release the other day?

What exactly was that all about, what was the motive? It suggested that Lock had purchased "certain assets" from Cake, which decoded, meant what exactly?

And why would they buy?

[tonytats]

Yes by the cash desk , you were talking with 3 people ,so we acknowledged each other briefly ,my glasses turned up in a week as well ,they at my request never bother me or use my details to bombard me with spam about there products ,I have a tesco MasterCard which gives me a lot of vouchers thro my spending ,and I have their broadband at home which has always been good ,so I never look at the price with a view to changing supplier .
I'm in Vegas a couple of days after you ,so will probably see you there instead of being on the same outbound flight like the last 2 previous years !

[horseplayer]

freeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee bet

what a hideous advert that is

attheraces which to be fair is home of some truly shocking ads (injurylawyers4u and ppiclaimback to name but seven) had it on a loop for about ten days and it drove me and many others mad

surprisingly they appeared to actually listen and take it of screen but it is now ruk just as much

[AlunB]

Wholly unrelated, but......

I assume you noted Ladbrokes results last week - yet again, a 30% decline in the Quarter. All rather sad, it has been like that for 2 or 3 years now. The music will have to stop eventually.

Titan have now stopped all "Pro" Sponsorship, too.

Purple Lounge closed last week, too, with barely a word of dissent from those who have lost all their deposits on that site.

Times are tough out there, except for the innovators, & those with a USP, who make the effort to come up with bundles of fresh stuff. I think a lot of the rooms & skins will just be deemed "cash cows" now.

Boom, bomb & bust. 

What amazes me is that casino continues to grow while poker declines. Why is this? Have casino games fundamentally changed? Has the consumer? No. Have they innovated and made the games slicker, faster and in-browser rather than tied to download applications? Yes. Have they advertised them heavily on the TV in the UK? Yes.

Chances of these lessons being learned and applied to poker? About zero.

I would assume because that, in relative terms, poker is pretty small beer compared to Casino & Betting. It was in the numbers, & I forget now, but if Poker is, say, 5% of the business as a whole, it makes little sense to divert management & promotional resource to it.  Which is why I assume they will get rid, eventually.

Must be said, I loathe with a passion their TV ad for betting, it does my head in!

To be fair to them it's pretty hard to get a good TV advert with the various restrictions and the knowledge that if you break a single one your rivals will be immediately registering a hotmail address to send a complaint to the ASA from a 'concerned' viewer.

I wasn't talking about Ladbrokes specifically, and it's a good chunk more than that at some companies. I was saying it's obvious from casino and sports betting that some tech innovation and some good marketing pays dividends. Look what 888 has done with some smart marketing and revamped software.

But the fact is they don't get poker. It's too hard and too different from casino and sports betting.

[AlunB]

Wholly unrelated, but......

I assume you noted Ladbrokes results last week - yet again, a 30% decline in the Quarter. All rather sad, it has been like that for 2 or 3 years now. The music will have to stop eventually.

Titan have now stopped all "Pro" Sponsorship, too.

Purple Lounge closed last week, too, with barely a word of dissent from those who have lost all their deposits on that site.

Times are tough out there, except for the innovators, & those with a USP, who make the effort to come up with bundles of fresh stuff. I think a lot of the rooms & skins will just be deemed "cash cows" now.

Boom, bomb & bust. 

What amazes me is that casino continues to grow while poker declines. Why is this? Have casino games fundamentally changed? Has the consumer? No. Have they innovated and made the games slicker, faster and in-browser rather than tied to download applications? Yes. Have they advertised them heavily on the TV in the UK? Yes.

Chances of these lessons being learned and applied to poker? About zero.

Slight divert here.

Did you see that Lock Poker/Cake Poker Press Release the other day?

What exactly was that all about, what was the motive? It suggested that Lock had purchased "certain assets" from Cake, which decoded, meant what exactly?

And why would they buy?

I have to admit to not knowing a great deal about this. It sounds like Lock is buying the software rather than the business as a whole. The whole US-facing poker world is very murky these days.