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Author Topic: Vegas & The Aftermath - Diary  (Read 6296190 times)
tikay
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« Reply #55140 on: July 01, 2020, 11:02:48 PM »


Afternoon.

Thank you to those who have manfully helped to just about keep the Diary alive. I don't seem to have a moment to spare, or relax, but when I step back & try to see where my time goes, I've no idea. I just know I use every minute of every day somehow. It's not like I have an important job at Sky Poker or anything, but what I do I try to do really well.

And what times we are living through, so many wow moments.

I've got through Lockdown just fine, in fact it did not overly bother me, except of course it meant I was barely able to see Gill. That apart, being alone all day every day did not trouble me one iota. Think I've become (even more) anti-social with age.

Gill had a bad do, she disturbed a burglar at 5am one morning, he had smashed in her half-glazed kitchen door & was mid clambering in when she arrived on the scene & fortunately he scarpered. She suffers quite badly from anxiety, but manages it well, but this sent her anxiety-o-meter into orbit & she was in very bad shape for a month or so. She's slightly better now but it still lurks in her mind, despite counselling & all sorts.

She'll never forget the saga, meanwhile I bet if they caught the urchin who did it he would not even remember doing it as he probably does 5 or 6 houses every night in his quest to find money to feed his drug habit. Not sure what I would do if I ever caught the bastard, as I’m a bit of a coward, but I’d happily give him some retribution if I caught him & to hell with the circumstances.

That's been the lockdown low for me, so I guess I can't complain, but it was beyond terrible for Gill.

And yeah, Vegas got cancelled, that upset her too. It upset me too, I had lost 3 stone, as per usual, & was all set. Then it was off, & the weight is piling back on. Nothing changes. If cancelling Vegas had happened without warning I'd have been off my trolley, but it was just a gradual realisation that it would not happen.

Set against the pain some have suffered, it's nothing I suppose.
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« Reply #55141 on: July 01, 2020, 11:07:28 PM »



I did miss Live sport very much. I’m not mad on recorded sport or endless repeats of retro stuff, so I was gagging for it’s return.

Football has been a bit of an anti-climax. I dislike that artificial crowd noise every bit as I loathe any tv show that contains canned laughter, I simply can’t watch it. So I do the “natural noise” version of football, & I quite like the voices of players & coaches echoing around the empty stadium. I quite enjoy hearing the swearing too, though it always strikes as odd that the commentators keep apologising. I’m not mad on swearing, but the world’s gone mad when commentators apologise for every audible profanity.

My favourite TV sports include Test cricket (returns next week), snooker, which has been a bit flat so far, & horse racing, especially NH, which I’ve enjoyed muchly, especially after several months of dire US horse racing, & golf. The US golf from Connecticut was a spectacular watch, such a beautiful course, & easy to see why the area is named New England. A strange lack of bird life though. Moto GP might be my fave watch, but no idea when it is slated to return.

F1 returns this week too. It’s not a sport really, & it’s certainly not competitive, but  the technical excellence is a thing of beauty. The sheer amount of cash they expend takes my breath away, as do the logistics of getting all the kit & personnel from venue to venue. Once the race starts though, I generally nod off.

I did enjoy that little Kiernan Tierney moment, as he polled up at Bramall Lane with a Tesco carrier bag. Would love to know what Maddison thought about being upstaged.   

 
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« Reply #55142 on: July 01, 2020, 11:08:21 PM »


It’s been just over 2 years since ‘Stars purchased SB&G, and I’ve still not quite got used to the shock. I assumed I’d soon be down the road, but as it panned out, it made no difference to me, or at least not so far.

Nobody saw that deal coming though, surely?

But the shocks were not over, as next, along came Flutter – Paddy Power/Betfair to you & me - & off we went again, another deal that nobody saw coming.

And who could have possibly imagined that COVID-19, which is destroying whole industries, would have done what it did for Online Poker? Out of the blue, without any extra promotions, capital spend, or even an extra penny in operational costs, Online Poker traffic trebled.

It stayed that way for around 2 months & is now well off the top. And yet, it’s still higher in mid-summer that it was in mid-winter. That’s never happened in the northern hemisphere before & surely will never again.     

The whole Online Gaming industry has changed beyond recognition. Who could ever have imagined this beast of a business?





 Click to see full-size image.

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« Reply #55143 on: July 02, 2020, 07:59:50 AM »

Though the group is new, Flutter is an older name in exchange terms.
Flutter.com did exchange gambling before Betfair bought them circa 20 years ago
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« Reply #55144 on: July 02, 2020, 08:16:42 AM »

Though the group is new, Flutter is an older name in exchange terms.
Flutter.com did exchange gambling before Betfair bought them circa 20 years ago

Correct.

It's actually quite a clever name for a gambling site.

They completed the rebrand in May of last year, but the man in the street still thinks of them as Paddy Power/Betfair.

The Flutter Super Cheese is a guy named Peter Jackson, who we often see on internal Zoom comms to the Staff. Every time I see him I'm reminded of the MP bloke, Rory Stewart.   


 
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« Reply #55145 on: July 02, 2020, 08:35:59 AM »


It’s been just over 2 years since ‘Stars purchased SB&G, and I’ve still not quite got used to the shock. I assumed I’d soon be down the road, but as it panned out, it made no difference to me, or at least not so far.

Nobody saw that deal coming though, surely?

But the shocks were not over, as next, along came Flutter – Paddy Power/Betfair to you & me - & off we went again, another deal that nobody saw coming.

And who could have possibly imagined that COVID-19, which is destroying whole industries, would have done what it did for Online Poker? Out of the blue, without any extra promotions, capital spend, or even an extra penny in operational costs, Online Poker traffic trebled.

It stayed that way for around 2 months & is now well off the top. And yet, it’s still higher in mid-summer that it was in mid-winter. That’s never happened in the northern hemisphere before & surely will never again.     

The whole Online Gaming industry has changed beyond recognition. Who could ever have imagined this beast of a business?





 Click to see full-size image.



Wow two years? I think we all would have expected Sky Poker to merge with Stars by now. Any idea why you have been kept as you are? I guess you are a nice little self sustaining site with a devoted customer base?

Re the growth of poker during Covid, early on I stumbled onto the fact that 'where to play online poker with friends' was the biggest search term poker had in years, so at my 'next door' we got an obscene amount of traffic writing about online home games. I think that might be the legacy of Covid for online poker, the rise of actually social games of online poker.
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« Reply #55146 on: July 02, 2020, 08:56:49 AM »


It’s been just over 2 years since ‘Stars purchased SB&G, and I’ve still not quite got used to the shock. I assumed I’d soon be down the road, but as it panned out, it made no difference to me, or at least not so far.

Nobody saw that deal coming though, surely?

But the shocks were not over, as next, along came Flutter – Paddy Power/Betfair to you & me - & off we went again, another deal that nobody saw coming.

And who could have possibly imagined that COVID-19, which is destroying whole industries, would have done what it did for Online Poker? Out of the blue, without any extra promotions, capital spend, or even an extra penny in operational costs, Online Poker traffic trebled.

It stayed that way for around 2 months & is now well off the top. And yet, it’s still higher in mid-summer that it was in mid-winter. That’s never happened in the northern hemisphere before & surely will never again.    

The whole Online Gaming industry has changed beyond recognition. Who could ever have imagined this beast of a business?





 Click to see full-size image.



Wow two years? I think we all would have expected Sky Poker to merge with Stars by now. Any idea why you have been kept as you are? I guess you are a nice little self sustaining site with a devoted customer base?

Re the growth of poker during Covid, early on I stumbled onto the fact that 'where to play online poker with friends' was the biggest search term poker had in years, so at my 'next door' we got an obscene amount of traffic writing about online home games. I think that might be the legacy of Covid for online poker, the rise of actually social games of online poker.


Morning Barry.

I think it's 2 years & 2 months actually.

I still remember seeing all the trade rumours on the Saturday morning, & thinking "that can't be true". I contacted a Cheese & he confirmed it, & then an internal e-Mail followed with the details. I remember reading that e-mail over & over, barely able to comprehend it. 'Stars purchased SB&G? Huh? Are you kidding me?

I was filled with doom & gloom, as I assumed I'd be down the road within weeks. It's turned out OK though, so far anyway.

It's taken some time to arrive at the final solution as to how Sky Poker moves forward. Let's be honest, when the deal first happened the enlarged Group had far bigger things to focus on initially. And 'Stars must be at least 100 times bigger than Sky Poker, so I doubt they saw it as a priority. It's a cracking little site though, & it does really well as a business unit. Give it a good piece of software & it will be epic.   

I don't really think I should comment too much on the future plans for the Sky Poker site, but work is well advanced & I think the best possible solution has been arrived at. I'm very excited by it all to be honest, it's going to be wicked. I just need to hope I can hang on in there, I've waited all this time & it'd be cruel if I missed the party.

Moving on now, read any good books lately?  

Congrats. How many have you co-authored now? 3, 4? I have nothing but admiration for you. I'd give anything to be able to write a book. I am trying, but whether I'll ever complete it is another matter. There'll be no market for it, obv, but I'd like to share it with a few close friends, though not until my train reaches it's final stop.  

Anyway, here's your free plug. Fully deserved, imo.


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« Last Edit: July 02, 2020, 08:59:46 AM by tikay » Logged

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« Reply #55147 on: July 02, 2020, 09:17:07 AM »


It’s been just over 2 years since ‘Stars purchased SB&G, and I’ve still not quite got used to the shock. I assumed I’d soon be down the road, but as it panned out, it made no difference to me, or at least not so far.

Nobody saw that deal coming though, surely?

But the shocks were not over, as next, along came Flutter – Paddy Power/Betfair to you & me - & off we went again, another deal that nobody saw coming.

And who could have possibly imagined that COVID-19, which is destroying whole industries, would have done what it did for Online Poker? Out of the blue, without any extra promotions, capital spend, or even an extra penny in operational costs, Online Poker traffic trebled.

It stayed that way for around 2 months & is now well off the top. And yet, it’s still higher in mid-summer that it was in mid-winter. That’s never happened in the northern hemisphere before & surely will never again.     

The whole Online Gaming industry has changed beyond recognition. Who could ever have imagined this beast of a business?





 Click to see full-size image.



If someone had said 10 years ago all those huge brands then would be together people would have laughed at you.   Same with lolal and lolbrokes merging.  Hills being a relative nobody valued at £300m at the peak of the FTSE slump.  Flutter is in the mid 20s market cap wise in the FTSE 100 now around the £17bn valuation.   It really is some beast now. 
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« Reply #55148 on: July 02, 2020, 09:21:21 AM »

Morning All,

   Like Tony I've become hermitised during the lockdown, and as I still work in the food industry the past 3 months has been manic trying to keep up with retailers demand, same %'s as poker.

Sue and the kids badly missed our Sunday night live game with upto 20 Vegas nuts in a local pub, but we quickly migrated to a Home Game on Stars, and the acidic chatroom banter on Discord.

Any of you guys railing this years WSOP?

https://www.wsop.com/tournaments/updates/

Cheere

Dave & Sue
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« Reply #55149 on: July 02, 2020, 09:24:27 AM »


It’s been just over 2 years since ‘Stars purchased SB&G, and I’ve still not quite got used to the shock. I assumed I’d soon be down the road, but as it panned out, it made no difference to me, or at least not so far.

Nobody saw that deal coming though, surely?

But the shocks were not over, as next, along came Flutter – Paddy Power/Betfair to you & me - & off we went again, another deal that nobody saw coming.

And who could have possibly imagined that COVID-19, which is destroying whole industries, would have done what it did for Online Poker? Out of the blue, without any extra promotions, capital spend, or even an extra penny in operational costs, Online Poker traffic trebled.

It stayed that way for around 2 months & is now well off the top. And yet, it’s still higher in mid-summer that it was in mid-winter. That’s never happened in the northern hemisphere before & surely will never again.     

The whole Online Gaming industry has changed beyond recognition. Who could ever have imagined this beast of a business?





 Click to see full-size image.



If someone had said 10 years ago all those huge brands then would be together people would have laughed at you.   Same with lolal and lolbrokes merging.  Hills being a relative nobody valued at £300m at the peak of the FTSE slump.  Flutter is in the mid 20s market cap wise in the FTSE 100 now around the £17bn valuation.   It really is some beast now. 

It's extraordinary, isn't it? Completely unthinkable even just a few years ago.

Talking of WH, a very shrewd industry insider - who I think you know - said 365 buying WH would not be the daftest idea ever, though traditionally of course 365 don't buy other businesses, they have their own way of working.

Gill is with 365 these days, & she has been WFH for 2 or 3 months, but she has been summoned back to the Office today. She works for the New Jersey department at the moment.

How did you cope with no sport to bet on for 3 months? Your main lines of interest iirc were Greyhounds, NBA & Tennis, which were all out of commission, so what did you do with yourself?

As an aside, how many dog tracks will fail to survive all this?
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« Reply #55150 on: July 02, 2020, 09:28:27 AM »

Morning Tone, welcome back.

On a scale of 1-10, how grumpy are you these days?

And on a scale of... well just on a scale really, how fat are you?
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« Reply #55151 on: July 02, 2020, 09:29:54 AM »


It’s been just over 2 years since ‘Stars purchased SB&G, and I’ve still not quite got used to the shock. I assumed I’d soon be down the road, but as it panned out, it made no difference to me, or at least not so far.

Nobody saw that deal coming though, surely?

But the shocks were not over, as next, along came Flutter – Paddy Power/Betfair to you & me - & off we went again, another deal that nobody saw coming.

And who could have possibly imagined that COVID-19, which is destroying whole industries, would have done what it did for Online Poker? Out of the blue, without any extra promotions, capital spend, or even an extra penny in operational costs, Online Poker traffic trebled.

It stayed that way for around 2 months & is now well off the top. And yet, it’s still higher in mid-summer that it was in mid-winter. That’s never happened in the northern hemisphere before & surely will never again.    

The whole Online Gaming industry has changed beyond recognition. Who could ever have imagined this beast of a business?





 Click to see full-size image.



Wow two years? I think we all would have expected Sky Poker to merge with Stars by now. Any idea why you have been kept as you are? I guess you are a nice little self sustaining site with a devoted customer base?

Re the growth of poker during Covid, early on I stumbled onto the fact that 'where to play online poker with friends' was the biggest search term poker had in years, so at my 'next door' we got an obscene amount of traffic writing about online home games. I think that might be the legacy of Covid for online poker, the rise of actually social games of online poker.


Morning Barry.

I think it's 2 years & 2 months actually.

I still remember seeing all the trade rumours on the Saturday morning, & thinking "that can't be true". I contacted a Cheese & he confirmed it, & then an internal e-Mail followed with the details. I remember reading that e-mail over & over, barely able to comprehend it. 'Stars purchased SB&G? Huh? Are you kidding me?

I was filled with doom & gloom, as I assumed I'd be down the road within weeks. It's turned out OK though, so far anyway.

It's taken some time to arrive at the final solution as to how Sky Poker moves forward. Let's be honest, when the deal first happened the enlarged Group had far bigger things to focus on initially. And 'Stars must be at least 100 times bigger than Sky Poker, so I doubt they saw it as a priority. It's a cracking little site though, & it does really well as a business unit. Give it a good piece of software & it will be epic.   

I don't really think I should comment too much on the future plans for the Sky Poker site, but work is well advanced & I think the best possible solution has been arrived at. I'm very excited by it all to be honest, it's going to be wicked. I just need to hope I can hang on in there, I've waited all this time & it'd be cruel if I missed the party.

Moving on now, read any good books lately?  

Congrats. How many have you co-authored now? 3, 4? I have nothing but admiration for you. I'd give anything to be able to write a book. I am trying, but whether I'll ever complete it is another matter. There'll be no market for it, obv, but I'd like to share it with a few close friends, though not until my train reaches it's final stop.  

Anyway, here's your free plug. Fully deserved, imo.


 Click to see full-size image.


Yeah similar thing on a smaller scale for me with PokerStrategy being owned by Playtech. We operate almost entirely independently still and we make a profit, so we have been largely left alone, but I often wonder what the long term plan is.

Thanks for the plug. Yes it is four now. Mental Game of Poker has gone on to be arguably one of the best selling poker books of all time (probably the biggest selling book of the last decade) and it has certainly looked after me over the years. I'm quite lucky with the books as each one has seen me partner with somebody whom I can learn a great deal from, so my role has been a stand in for the audience. Dara and I have potentially two more in the works too.

Only advice I can give you is to blast out a crap book first, then you have something to edit and make better. I think not getting started is the biggest problem fledgling authors have, if you just commit to getting a bad book down on paper, the rest by comparison is easy.
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« Reply #55152 on: July 02, 2020, 09:30:34 AM »

Morning All,

   Like Tony I've become hermitised during the lockdown, and as I still work in the food industry the past 3 months has been manic trying to keep up with retailers demand, same %'s as poker.

Sue and the kids badly missed our Sunday night live game with upto 20 Vegas nuts in a local pub, but we quickly migrated to a Home Game on Stars, and the acidic chatroom banter on Discord.

Any of you guys railing this years WSOP?

https://www.wsop.com/tournaments/updates/

Cheere

Dave & Sue

Morning Dave.

Ha, what a great word - hermitised.

I'm not into Discord, by & large I avoid all these SM platforms, as it all gets a bit too toxic for me. I'm on Twitter & I enjoy a lot of the bants on there but I almost never Tweet.

I'm not following the Online WSOP yet, no, but I guess I ought to. It's weird to think that in the USA you can only play it if you are in Nevada or New Jersey. 

I think I read that the Main Event - $5,000 - has 22 "Day 1" flights & everyone can re-enter up to 3 times. That's sure going to work out well for recreationals.

Hope you are both well, & xx to Sue as always.
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« Reply #55153 on: July 02, 2020, 09:41:37 AM »

Oh and are you still a blonde or are you a brunette again?
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« Reply #55154 on: July 02, 2020, 09:42:28 AM »

Morning Tone, welcome back.

On a scale of 1-10, how grumpy are you these days?

And on a scale of... well just on a scale really, how fat are you?

Hi Tom.

Huh? When was I ever grumpy?

I'm mostly chilled, to be honest, though I can get well grumpy at some stuff. I've learned to try & not get stressed, it's not healthy for me. I have my own set routines, & it's only when they get disturbed that I'm overcome with grumps. There's no in-between though, when I do get grumpy I'm off the scale. The art of biting one's tongue is very important, so when I see stuff that troubles me I just try not to get involved. I just want to reach the destination in peace.

Weight? I dropped almost 3 stone from Jan 1st to May 30th, in readiness for Vegas, which of course never happened. I've not dared weigh myself since, but I would not be surprised if I'd put a stone back on. Luckily (?) I was very unwell for several weeks - tummy department - when I came off the diet, so that saved me from the worst excesses of bad food, pork pies & sticky buns & even now I'm scared to eat any bad food. Choc Ices are good food though, & plenty of those have gone down the hatch. 

Are you still pleasantly plump?
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