Vegas & The Aftermath - Diary

[redsimon]

Have you ever been on a cruise? They sound like my idea of hell.

[tikay]

I had some off-thread feedback about that TV programme I mentioned about "The Madness of Rallying" a day or two ago, including from Dave Norsden.

I promised to give Dave a link, but the PM service Next Door does not accept links, so you can catch the Show on I-Player here.......

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b01fcncc/madness-on-wheels-rallyings-craziest-years

For 80's petrol heads, or just those interested in how times change so quickly, this is a must watch.


Here's a typical scene - how on earth did more people not get killed, & why was it allowed to continue for so long?

[tikay]

Have you ever been on a cruise? They sound like my idea of hell.

On a Cruise Liner? Once, & that was a "freebie", I was officially invited on a Ladbrokes Cruise in around 2005 to write puffy blogs. We sailed from Miami & around the Caribbean. I think Marky147 was on the same cruise. Certainly Skalie & Co were, ditto Norman Pace & Dave Ulliott.

If you can imagine no escape from poker talk for 7 days & nights,  then you'll get the picture. Made some good friends though, & an enemy or two. The Ladbrokes Director bloke got a bit cross with me, as I never uploaded any Blogs, but with no Wifi, it was kinda difficult......

On a yacht, yes, 2 or 3 times. (Hark at me, eh?). Achilleas Kalakkis invited me onto his Yacht, & we sailed the Greek Islands, & had two Monte Carlo based cruises. Also present were Dave Colclough, Rhowena, Michael Greco, Robert Cooper, John Duthie, Mad Marty Wilson etc. 24/7 of Mad Marty, no matter how much you love him, can be a little too much for me. Andy Pyrah was there, too. A mixed bunch, you might say.

His yacht, "Lady K" - or I thought it was his, but it turned out not to be the case - was just magnificent, the most beautiful Yacht you could ever imagine, all varnished wood, brass & thick carpets.  

Of course, years later, his façade came tumbling down, & he ended up as a guest of HMPS. We do meet some sorts in poker, eh?

[tikay]

Here's a report from PokerNews on that Ladbrokes cruise. Some blasts from the past mentioned there.

http://uk.pokernews.com/news/2006/01/ladbrokes-poker-cruise.htm

[redsimon]

Whatever happened to Rhowena?

[tikay]

Whatever happened to Rhowena?

Dave & Rhowena went their separate ways, after a rather messy situation which was all over blonde at the time, posted by Dave.

Last I heard she was very happy, met a chap from Southampton or down there somewhere, & they were going along nicely. Not heard or spoke to her for best part of 10 years though. 

She was a lovely kid, a little naive perhaps, but a genuinely nice person.

There ought to be a Caption Comp for this photo of Dave & Rhowena. 

[tikay]

...and talking of blasts from the past, & folks I have not spoken to in ages, when I searched for that photo of Rhowena on google Images, I found this one too, right next door to it.

Think this is at MGM Grand in Vegas. We had rented a posh suite for the night, to do some TV filming, with Rhowena messing about in a Jacuzzi on the Balcony, & I was cast as a sort of Benny Hill character, leering at her. Don't even ask.  

The last reports I have of Dave Compton is that he is back home, & getting on with his life. His Twitter feed re-activated a few months ago, but it was not him, it had been hacked, I'm 95% certain.  

Two of the last Tweets went as follows;

"@GaryLineker @KP24 hes a c*nt" (my asterisk)


@AtTheRaces Christmas special lol. Not fucking invited. @skysportsAlexH @LeglockLuke and some small fat ex jockey.

Neither of those sounds like Dave to me.




This photo would have been around 8 or 10 years ago. I was younger then.  

[tikay]

Back to business for a mo.

Just received payment of £100 from "knottikay", thanks Alan.

knottikay PAID

[tikay]

I also went one year when I thought they were at home & in fact they were away, marv.

We also went one year when they were away not at home sir, We.

It was your fault completely, Jeeves. I must say, you did look rather fetching in that lovely dress you wore though.

Will you be attending on Pleno again this year?

[tikay]

Morning.

Bank Details have now been sent to all those who expressed an interest, excepting those who have already paid. I've also omitted KarmaDope & scotty77, as we will settle up in Vegas as agreed.

Payment is not due yet, so no rush.

Will pay in Vegas if that's ok.

+1

Flying the same day and playing the Venetian PLO event so can give it to you then?

Absolutely, that works fine by me. Go easy on me at the table though, & feel free to call. I always have it.

[tikay]

We going to the Baseball @ Cashman Field this year? I rather enjoy that slice of Americana. Went with you one year, then took Gill another year & bumped into Longy, & last year went with Tal & Mr Ambo. Thoroughly enjoyable.

I also went one year when I thought they were at home & in fact they were away, marv.

If Monday 27th June slots... I'd love to join the party

Hi Simon,

It might work for Keith or Tal, but it clashes with one of my biggest scheduled Events, the $1,100 PLO @ Venetian, & as it does not start until 5pm, even I'll struggle to be busto in time for Baseball that night. I'm not even forced to have played a hand by then. Baseball may work out cheaper, mind. 

Here's the Las Vegas 51ers Schedule for June, maybe we can do it another night?

http://www.milb.com/schedule/index.jsp?sid=t400&m=6&y=2016

[tikay]

Hello all.  Just been trying to catch up a bit on all the goings on . I hope all Blondes are running good .

Not been able to do much lurking lately as have been busy with all kinds of stuff, work ( overrated ) travelling ( underrated)  and bought a little place on a golf course over here and even joined the club. I put some bad cards in and they gave me a 12 handicap !!!!!!!!!!! ( definitely worth some exclamation marks-sorry )  Then they weren't happy when I won the net club championship- LOL. Bought them some undrinkable American beer though to prevent an international incident.

I thought I would check your Vegas schedule Tikay  .I'm flying in on 5th June for a couple of weeks as it stands so if you fancy coffee or lunch or  dinner then let me know. It would be great to catch up with you . Have you made an honest woman out of Gill yet ?

Been reading with interest about your golf lessons at Kedleston, DJ Russell , great player and big buddies with the Head Pro  I worked for in my first assistant pros job in Salisbury ( Nigel Blenkarne was his name and incidentally his brother won an archery Olympic gold in Moscow in 1980 ) , molitor golf  balls ( absolute bricks ) and Joan Collins who was my pin up when I was a teenager ( still got the hots for her even  now ).
Seeing as I'm rambling now like Tikay himself , my uncle claims to have dated Joan Collins when they were both at RADA

BTW Tony, if you ever get a chance to go to Asheville , the Smoky Mountains and the Blue Ridge Parkway I would definitely recommend it. Absolutely beautiful part of the world , spoilt only by Americans.  Spent a day at Biltmore Estate , the largest family estate in the USA , owned by the Vandebilt family who are a really interesting bunch. Came out of nowhere to build a huge business in shipping and railroads and became the 2nd richest family in the States behind Rockefeller. One of them even married a Spencer -Churchill and became a Duchess Google them if you fancy an interesting 10 minutes .

Sorry for rambling on. Let me know about coffee in Vegas ( I'm buying )
Slowmo

oioi, Slowmo in the thread.

I'm out of time today, & there's a whole lot of replies & questions needed for that, so I'll have to leave it until tomorrow I'm afraid.

Great to hear from you.

Whereabouts in the USA are you living?


For those who are not aware, it was SlowMo who got me in to Poker (& Spread Betting, from which I still bear the scars).

Very good golfer, Simon, & of those who occasionally peruse this thread, bookiebasher, Greg Hill, old Mr Giblin & Uncle Ralph will know all about Simon's golf prowess.  He holds the claim to fame of being the first Club Golfer to average 6 hours per round.  

He tried to help me with my golf, but that was a lost cause. I got in a bunker at Royal Ormonde or Woodhall Spa one day, & was into double figures trying to hack the ball out. Slowmo was so exasperated with me that he climbed in the bunker & threw the ball onto the green. I protested, "I'll be disqualified", but he reminded me that being disqualified probably beat carding 173.

And if he has wangled a 12 handicap, that's outrageous. 3 would be more like it.

Simon used to hit the sweetest 3 wood I've ever seen, barely rose above shoulder height, but zinged like a bullet, arrow straight & half a mile. Pretty sure he regularly drove the green on the Par 4 2nd @ Ormonde.  

Used to be a commodity trader or somesuch, probably still is.

Here's Simon playing the WSOP SENIORS, in which he cashed big & crushed the bubble. Sort of.  

[Doobs]

Do you ever play limit hold em?   When I first started, I used to win at limit but found it horribly boring compared to no limit hold'em.  I think I may have missed a trick somewhere, because I am sure that it should suit me well as it is very mathematical. I put Jason Somerville's twitch on last night as I was short of tables.  He was playing the 2k and seemed to be enjoying himself (it didn't end well).  Anyway, I had a look at the structure and thought it didn't look too bad as these SCOOPs go and guessed that there wouldnt be many left for day 2 and that it should finish about 4. 

Anyway, boyed by Jason Somerville's enthusiasm, I stepped in, and I am still in.  I am currently 16/27 with 20k up top.  It isn't up there with Pleno's wins, but you still get the title, the watch and plenty of spending money for Vegas.  The field seems a bit stacked too, with the likes of Jason "JasonMercier" Mercier and Shaun "shaundeeb" Deeb in it.  The latter was sat at my table for a while late on and unfortunately seems to have much more idea than I do and is sat on near 400k vs my 120k (we were both on just over 200k at one stage).  Still I can gets aces just as easily as he can, so we are still in with a shout.  I am guaranteed $650 so far.  If you want to see how a complete imbicile plays limit poker than it starts at 9 (clue here, I play it a bit like I play plo8...  bet bet bet, arrgh).  I have 12 big bets remaining, which doesn't sound much, but isn't so bad.  More importantly, I really enjoyed it, I must be getting to a certain age.

BTW, you didn't tell me that you now have £15 plo8 games on sky now.  Do you ever watch Jason Somerville's twitch? He is a natural and very good for the game.  He even plays NLO8 and PLO8 occasionally.

[Marky147]

Do you ever play limit hold em?   When I first started, I used to win at limit but found it horribly boring compared to no limit hold'em.  I think I may have missed a trick somewhere, because I am sure that it should suit me well as it is very mathematical. I put Jason Somerville's twitch on last night as I was short of tables.  He was playing the 2k and seemed to be enjoying himself (it didn't end well).  Anyway, I had a look at the structure and thought it didn't look too bad as these SCOOPs go and guessed that there wouldnt be many left for day 2 and that it should finish about 4. 

Anyway, boyed by Jason Somerville's enthusiasm, I stepped in, and I am still in.  I am currently 16/27 with 20k up top.  It isn't up there with Pleno's wins, but you still get the title, the watch and plenty of spending money for Vegas.  The field seems a bit stacked too, with the likes of Jason "JasonMercier" Mercier and Shaun "shaundeeb" Deeb in it.  The latter was sat at my table for a while late on and unfortunately seems to have much more idea than I do and is sat on near 400k vs my 120k (we were both on just over 200k at one stage).  Still I can gets aces just as easily as he can, so we are still in with a shout.  I am guaranteed $650 so far.  If you want to see how a complete imbicile plays limit poker than it starts at 9 (clue here, I play it a bit like I play plo8...  bet bet bet, arrgh).  I have 12 big bets remaining, which doesn't sound much, but isn't so bad.  More importantly, I really enjoyed it, I must be getting to a certain age.

BTW, you didn't tell me that you now have £15 plo8 games on sky now.  Do you ever watch Jason Somerville's twitch? He is a natural and very good for the game.  He even plays NLO8 and PLO8 occasionally.

Probably quite sad, but I've watched his Twitch most nights over the last 3 months, purely as a means to try and get from 'super random moron', to 'rando moron' in mixed games

He really is very good, and I was actually surprised how watchable it is.

Best of luck in the comp tonight!

[Marky147]

Have you ever been on a cruise? They sound like my idea of hell.

On a Cruise Liner? Once, & that was a "freebie", I was officially invited on a Ladbrokes Cruise in around 2005 to write puffy blogs. We sailed from Miami & around the Caribbean. I think Marky147 was on the same cruise. Certainly Skalie & Co were, ditto Norman Pace & Dave Ulliott.

If you can imagine no escape from poker talk for 7 days & nights,  then you'll get the picture. Made some good friends though, & an enemy or two. The Ladbrokes Director bloke got a bit cross with me, as I never uploaded any Blogs, but with no Wifi, it was kinda difficult......

On a yacht, yes, 2 or 3 times. (Hark at me, eh?). Achilleas Kalakkis invited me onto his Yacht, & we sailed the Greek Islands, & had two Monte Carlo based cruises. Also present were Dave Colclough, Rhowena, Michael Greco, Robert Cooper, John Duthie, Mad Marty Wilson etc. 24/7 of Mad Marty, no matter how much you love him, can be a little too much for me. Andy Pyrah was there, too. A mixed bunch, you might say.

His yacht, "Lady K" - or I thought it was his, but it turned out not to be the case - was just magnificent, the most beautiful Yacht you could ever imagine, all varnished wood, brass & thick carpets.  

Of course, years later, his façade came tumbling down, & he ended up as a guest of HMPS. We do meet some sorts in poker, eh?

I was, and a very messy few weeks it was, too.

Great trip, and some great memories, too.

Nigel Blower uploaded several videos to Youtube of the cruise, and some sort of documentary they were making of it.

I'll have a look for them later.