Vegas & The Aftermath - Diary

[bobby1]

GIQ FFS.

seriously tho I love reading your tourney reports, love the way you capture what playing for decent money means to you and your inner feelings at the time.

I think you need to reintroduce some old forum favourites like 'break one off in his ass' tho just to make you look tougher.

[tikay]

GIQ FFS.

seriously tho I love reading your tourney reports, love the way you capture what playing for decent money means to you and your inner feelings at the time.

I think you need to reintroduce some old forum favourites like 'break one off in his ass' tho just to make you look tougher.

Shush Quayle.

You may have forgotten, but it was you (via Wm Hill) that paid me into that first WSOP Event I ever played, 9 years back, when we went across with John McGrane & his family.

Oh, & I forgot to add, in the UKPC Omaha, I accepted a "wanna swap 10%?" question from Chris Cox. That worked out well. For him. So that was £700 of the £7k spent already.

Rip him a new asshole? Nah, I leave that stuff to Jeeeves. He's very bolshy in real life, you know.

Now then, tell us about AsianBabes.com, for those Diary readers who don't trouble with reading Fred.

AsianBabes.com, go on. We are all ears.

[tikay]

Nearly caught up now. Just the small matter of the UKPC, & how it stressed me to death, & my Gong thing. Gotta be done, as I like to look back on stuff every year, so steer a wide berth.

Then we can return to more interesting stuff, like concrete, missing aeroplanes (FIVE weeks now), & Business Leaders who inspire me.

Here's a message from Michael.




 
 

[claypole]

Enjoyed this write ups....and good to see you at the weekend

Eso

[tikay]

Enjoyed this write ups....and good to see you at the weekend

Eso

Yeah, good to see you, too, Rich.

Pretty sure Eso told me he had been up in Leeds & Sheffield all weekend.

[Tal]

...

I'd had a few railers from the start, Holdy Foldy, one of my Bosses (yes, another one...), but right to the very end, Jen Mason & Tal. Railing me must be THe most boring thing ever, but it meant a great deal to me. Imagine what it must be like to have Team Shoe Bomb railing on a WSOP Final Table?


...

You were far less boring than I expected. I thought it'd be like railing Miss Havisham from Great Expectations, all miserable and covered in cobwebs. I didn't expect the wedding dress, granted. That took me by surprise

You play much more PLO than I, so I'd happily bow to your judgment, but I thought you played very well. You did very little calling, were generally playing in position and played at a slightly under average level of aggression, which, given that table, seemed about right to me. I had a sky poker resident expert analyst to help me with any technical stuff, helpfully. Proper banter.

[tikay]

"The Lounge" currently has no less than FOUR threads about something called "Games of Thrones".

Anyone know what "Games of Thrones" is?

TV Show, Film, childrens x-box game?

[tikay]

I had a sky poker resident expert analyst to help me with any technical stuff, helpfully.

Ahh, you refer to Miss Mason.

For balance, I think I could happily rail paint drying if Miss Mason were sat next to me, articulating her madcap thoughts.

Talking of which, she even does elegant spam. Did you ever see better spam than this peach? Sheer genius.

http://blondepoker.com/forum/index.php?topic=63566.0

[tikay]

The United States Embassy, London.

[tikay]

The North Korean Embassy, London.

Click to see full-size image.

[horseplayer]

Be careful Tikay

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-27038723

[tikay]

So, a whole 2 months after the Event, UKPC.

I promised myself this would be my last big "project".

"My"?

Well in truth, I had no power at all, I was simply a go-between, a translator, between DTD & Sky Poker.

Those two businesses make very odd bedfellows. One is run by an entrepeaneur, who makes huge decisions by the seat of his pants, & needs no approvals, the other is part of a huge Corporate outfit. Anyone who has worked for a really big business will know what I mean.  Approvals are required even for things like Taxi Fares & Hotel rooms, so when a theoretical 6 figure liability is involved, it all gets a bit uphill.

So my main task (puff apart) was to be the link between the two parties, to sort of translate.

I treated it as "my" event though, it works better that way, ownership is a great motivator.

Amazingly, the story begins back in October 2012.......

[tikay]

Rob Yong first floated the concept to me in the Autumn of 2012. I loved it, but that don't cut any ice upstairs, so I needed to get the suits on board.

The suits liked it, too, so soon we all met at Rob's offices, on an Industrial Estate near the Nottingham ring road.

I'm an obsessive "minute-taker", & my notes remind me that we met on December 12th 2012, @ 15.07, & amongst the attendees were Rob, Nick, a Suit, myself, &......Numpty.

Interesting looking back, as almost everything we agreed that day came to fruition - except the timing. It was origionally scheduled for April 2013. It took place 10 months after that, lol.

.....

[tikay]

So it went back & forth, & the date kept moving again & again. And again.

Nobody was to blame, it just panned out like that. Legals are so time-consuming, but have to be in place.

And insurance. And this, and that, & the other.

Eventually, BOOM, we got there, everything agreed.

Only to find that the approval by the Business was now in the prior financial year, so we had to sort that again, "make the pitch", da de da.

We got there in the end though.

I'm not sure everyone understands the (potential) benefit of these things to an Online Room, but google, SEO, & "brand awareness" are HUGE factors, incredibly important. And those boxes got ticked, & some, it was a massive success when all the metrics were analysed.

.....

[tikay]

The week went off almost without a hitch, near perfect in every way. There was one little incident, but it was handled optimally, imo.

All the Events sold out, & crucially, the atmo was great all week. That does not auto-happen, it needs "sweating" to achieve, but we did it.  

You always want a "good" winner in these things, a Cody, Toby, a Devilfish, a name ideally, but our winner was pretty good, a 20 year lad unknown, just 4 Tourneys to his name, who beat a field that included half a dozen WSOP Bracelet holders & a sprinkling of EPT winners. Pretty neat, that.

So all pretty good really.

And you know what, in all that preamble to the event, DTD & Sky Poker never had a single falling out. And that was MY department, so yeah, I was pretty pleased.

At one stage, I had to get some Legals signed urgently, & pinning Rob down is not easy. I eventually agreed to meet him at St Pancras Station, one Friday afternoon.

Just sign this please Rob.

And this.

Oh, & this insurance dubree, too.

And that one......

He must have been at his wits end with me, but he was as good as gold, and so were Sky Poker.

Phew.

But I swore, because I was emotionally & physically drained, never again, so help me God, never again, I'm too old for the stress levels.  

Job done, next case.