Vegas & The Aftermath - Diary

[tikay]

I was just leaving my hotel this morning & an elderly Gent & his Lady wife were walking past.

"tikay - it's tikay, isn't it?" says he. "We sit & watch you on Sky Poker, we love watching you".

I'm blushing, but I confess, it's really rather nice when that happens. No idea why, but it is.

In the Gala Cardroom tonight, another Guy comes up, he's a Sky Poker regular too, & he won "The Open" last Sunday for £3,100. Well done "mugger".

And just one more - I feel a tap on my shoulder, & it's Thomas Kremser, aka "Big tikay". Marina (Mrs Kremser, pretty as a picture) is here too, & I'm looking forward to interviewing Thomas, maybe Marina too, for Poker Week tomorrow.

He's best known for his TD activities, in which field he's the European Supremo.

But I've played with him a few times, & he has some game. We had a wonderful evening in Jesolo (near Venice) a few years back, in an Omaha comp, and we clashed again in a Hold 'Em Event at the same fessie, in which I came 4th & he was 2nd.  In a Limit Event at the Amsterdam Master Classics back in about 2003, he Bubbled & I bubble-bubbled. Big tikay is too good for old tikay, it seems. Marina can play a bit too, she has a few Tourney cashes, but she plays a mean cash-game.

I'm a bit sore my aces got cracked tonight in the Biggie, but I've had a lovely day, & the news from Phil Quayle just rounded it off.

[Indestructable]

Went to the Rendevous at Brighton last night to take my mind of things and hadn't played live for a while so thought why not. I then bumped in to a guy who recognised me as the guy that won on Sky Poker from the studios. 
I then played 90 minutes of in my view pretty good poker, I won the first couple of hands and went on form there and not one rebuy needed. Killer hand was a pair of 8's and another 8 on the flop. The other player then had runner runner to give her a straight flush.  This crippled me until I had a pair of 3's and hit a three on the flop. The player to my left went all in with pocket queens and and easy call for most of my chips, he then hit runner runer for a flush.
It just goes to show it doesn't only happen on the net.
 

[Yogi-Bear]

Tonight's £200 was sold out, I was third reserve, but everyone showed up, so there you go, no prob.

But I discovered THE weirdest thing.

If 10 players failed to show, & there were 10 Reserves on the List, the Reserves would NOT get a seat unless the "no-shows" actually rung the Casino & said they were not gonna turn up. If they dd not ring up & cancel, their seat would NOT get released to a reserve. And why is that? You'd NEVER guess! It's as mad as a bag of mad things, & totally illogical.

So what is the Mad reason??

Possibly that they can't not be there till it starts and by that time it's already started so u ain't allowed to sit down?? Enlighten me Tikay as I seem to be the only one interested.

Yogi

[AndrewT]

Tonight's £200 was sold out, I was third reserve, but everyone showed up, so there you go, no prob.

But I discovered THE weirdest thing.

If 10 players failed to show, & there were 10 Reserves on the List, the Reserves would NOT get a seat unless the "no-shows" actually rung the Casino & said they were not gonna turn up. If they dd not ring up & cancel, their seat would NOT get released to a reserve. And why is that? You'd NEVER guess! It's as mad as a bag of mad things, & totally illogical.

So what is the Mad reason??

Possibly that they can't not be there till it starts and by that time it's already started so u ain't allowed to sit down?? Enlighten me Tikay as I seem to be the only one interested.

Yogi

Could be that they're not allowed to add any new tables once the draw has taken place. The players who don't phone up get blinded out, but the casino can't add a new table for the alternates - they have to be slotted into empty seats at existing tables. This is in the new rules Tightend posted in Live Poker - dunno if they've started yet.

[tikay]

Tonight's £200 was sold out, I was third reserve, but everyone showed up, so there you go, no prob.

But I discovered THE weirdest thing.

If 10 players failed to show, & there were 10 Reserves on the List, the Reserves would NOT get a seat unless the "no-shows" actually rung the Casino & said they were not gonna turn up. If they dd not ring up & cancel, their seat would NOT get released to a reserve. And why is that? You'd NEVER guess! It's as mad as a bag of mad things, & totally illogical.

So what is the Mad reason??

Possibly that they can't not be there till it starts and by that time it's already started so u ain't allowed to sit down?? Enlighten me Tikay as I seem to be the only one interested.

Yogi

Could be that they're not allowed to add any new tables once the draw has taken place. The players who don't phone up get blinded out, but the casino can't add a new table for the alternates - they have to be slotted into empty seats at existing tables. This is in the new rules Tightend posted in Live Poker - dunno if they've started yet.

The new rules have not started yet.

As to.....

Could be that they're not allowed to add any new tables once the draw has taken place

I'm sorry if I misled you here, that was not what I was suggesting at all. I simply felt that if someone is a no-show, then a waiting Reserve should be given his place. Gala would NOT do this, unless the "No-Show" rung up & cancelled. So, in theory, there could be 10 vacant seats, & 10 Reserves, ready & poised to play, & they all get turned away.

I'll (try to) explain it properly in my reply to Yogi.

[tikay]

Tonight's £200 was sold out, I was third reserve, but everyone showed up, so there you go, no prob.

But I discovered THE weirdest thing.

If 10 players failed to show, & there were 10 Reserves on the List, the Reserves would NOT get a seat unless the "no-shows" actually rung the Casino & said they were not gonna turn up. If they dd not ring up & cancel, their seat would NOT get released to a reserve. And why is that? You'd NEVER guess! It's as mad as a bag of mad things, & totally illogical.

So what is the Mad reason??

Possibly that they can't not be there till it starts and by that time it's already started so u ain't allowed to sit down?? Enlighten me Tikay as I seem to be the only one interested.

Yogi

That's about the sum of it.

The Official line was this.

1) We cannot remove the absent players chips until the tourney has begun.

2) We cannot slot in any Reserve player after the Tourney has begun.

I accept 2) in it's entirety.

I don't accept 1) for a moment, that's just ducking the "ever-so-easy-to-resolve-and-still-be-GC-compliant" issue.

Look, it's just a case of saying, "if you ain't at in your seat when the tourney is ABOUT to begin, your seat will be offered to a Reserve, & your money refunded".

If it's that simple, why don't they do it? Because it means fiddling with the names on the Computer/Plasma Thing, & that's a bit of a ballache. We are increasingly ruled by Computer systems & lack pf imagination.

Rather than moan, I try to "do", so I took the opportunity to make my point to all the Senior Gala Suits in Leeds. They apologised, & all agreed, & said they would do something. In fairness, with the new GC rules imminent, it will all change anyway, & they'll have to mess with the PC & Plasma details if they are acceptting alternates, so it's all a bit academic right now.

We had precisely the same problem in APAT Live Events,. They are always sold out, there are always 1 or 2 no-shows, & there are always folks hanging around awaiting a spare seat. So we give a 5, 3 & 1 minute warning, "if you are not in your seat in 5/3/1 minutes, your seat will go to a Reserve". Once the time is up, we have the reserves stood on the Rail "just in case",  beckon them to their seat (we have their names all sorted in readiness), and then we shuffle up & deal. And it's harder for APAT, because our Events start at the scheduled time. I did the same thing at the Sky Live Tourney at The Broadway. And that started on time.

It's about looking after the Client. (That's us poker players).

Fair play to Gala, they accepted fully my point.

Turning away 10 folks, who can see 10 empty seats on the grounds of 1), is just not really terribly bright.

Moving on, come the September "changes", there will be no excuse not to start all tourneys bang on time.

[tikay]

Having got myself busted from the Leeds GBPT Tourney rather unselfishly, (and with help from that damn skalie fella & his 4-4) I had all day on Sunday for Poker Week duties, and it was a 16 hour grueller, a mix of excitement & drudgery, while we astonishingly lost only 1 player in 8 hours.

But we started at 10am, in the Ibis Hotel lobby, & all trooped off to the Thackray Medical Museum to record our Links. The connection between the Medical Museum & poker is tenuous at best, but we just like to give some local flavour to the Show.

It's a restored, ancient, hospital annexe, they had some Lottery Funding to spruce it up. In that respect, the Lottery is a good thing, though why on earth people burn money every week by entering a Nartional Lottery astounds me, the "rake" is obscene.

It's a lovely museum, full of fascinating stuff, mostly 18th & 19th century re-enactments.

Two things were burned into my mind.

One was the most modern exhibit there, a 1938 "Iron Lung". An Iron Lung enabled a polio patient, for example, to breathe. Polio was rife in the 40's & 50's, & there were tens of thousands of Iron Lungs in Europe alone. It was like a long metal cylinder, & the patient laid in it, with their head poking out of a hole at one end. So they could breathe. (It was essentially a Ventilator). And nothing else, they just lay in this contraption untl they eventually died. Can you imagine that? How incredibly awful it must have been.

The thing that caught my eye, is they were built at Cowley Motor Works, & supplied free (Government Funded I suppose though I don't know for sure) all over the British Empire. Cowley was the home of Morris Motors, owned by William Morris, later to become Viscount Nuffield, & he eventually formed the Nuffield Foundation, which still exists to this day for Medical purposes. There you go, Iron Lungs made at Cowley, who'd have thought that?. Hello - you still awake there?

The other thing that caught my eye/imagination, well, it's harder to describe.

Imagine you suffered from gall stones in the 19th century. No ultra sound technology, & no anaesthetic. But excruciating pain.

Think this through then.

They laid you on your back, in the "giving birth" position, but legs right over your head. One person held each leg down, 2 people held your body down. Because, like, this is gonna hurt a bit.

Now comes the surgeon chappie. He has a pair of sort of long-nosed pliers, long & very thin, about a foot long. I'll let you guess where he sticks those. Remember, no anaesthetic. And off he goes, sticks this contraption up you, fishes around till he located the stone, & pulls it out.

The patient would be screaming blue murder, as you can imagine, it was said the screams could be heard 500 yards away. Now, imagine you are the next patient, & you are sat outside listening to this howling. "Next" says the surgeon.

Gulp.......

[tikay]

We got to the Casino early afternoon, & things were a bit "quiet" in the Tourney, to put it mildly.

Mr Gala Big Suit kindly offered the Poker Week crew dinner in the restaurant, & so we gladly accepted, Sunday roast, lovely. I've not had proper Sunday Lunch for years, I don't cook at home, ever. Roast pork, yorkshire pud, roasties, gravy, followed by rhubarb crumble. But I'd clean forgotten why I never eat meals "out" - I have a tendancy to "drop off" straight after. It never fails, & did not this time, and when I awoke the Restaurant was deserted, I was totally alone. Bbut there were numerous allegations of heavy snoring, which I so deny.

Anyway, I had received a call, & missed it while "resting", from Maureen, The Nun, & the next thing I knew, she was there, stood beside me. She'd bought young Reece along to see me, he was outside, I'd not met him before, what a lovely surprise. And Reece is just wonderful, full of life, & vitality, finding spiders everywhere - "look, spiders" he kept saying! We had a wonderful half hour.

I thought it'd be kinda nice to bring Darren Campbell, (who'd just exited the Tourney) the gold medal runner chappie down to meet Reece, & Darren was well up for it, & Michelle Orpe came down too. Reece really took to Darren, it was very moving really. Orpey took some 'photos, & I'll put them up when she sends them to me.

[Karabiner]

Tonight's £200 was sold out, I was third reserve, but everyone showed up, so there you go, no prob.

But I discovered THE weirdest thing.

If 10 players failed to show, & there were 10 Reserves on the List, the Reserves would NOT get a seat unless the "no-shows" actually rung the Casino & said they were not gonna turn up. If they dd not ring up & cancel, their seat would NOT get released to a reserve. And why is that? You'd NEVER guess! It's as mad as a bag of mad things, & totally illogical.

I was 1st reserve for the Gala GB Tour £500 event in Nottingham and someone failed to show, but the ruling was that he was not disqualified until the first hand had been dealt and then it was deemed too late to enter the reserve. 

[tikay]

The Tourney yesterday was excellent, though not for those watching, & my life was ebbing away, & I loathe being in Casinos with nothing to do, & my Lappie would not fire up.

Anyway, I did an In-Depth Interview for Poker week with "Big tikay", Thomas Kremser. I've known Thomas for years, & I've never seen him anything but immaculately turned out when he's working. Shiny black shoes, smart black suit, white shirt, horrendous tie, gelled hair. Marina dresses him I believe, though she allows him to wear casuals when he is playing.

So, we finished the interview, which was excellent, & we sat chatting for nearly an hour. Inevitably, we got round to (& I'd mentioned it in the Interview) "unifiormity of rules in poker". He's doing his bit on that, via the WPA, & he has tied his wagon to their efforts. We both agreed 100% on the why's & wherefores, & the fact that more than one organisation is pushing that ball up that great big hill was comforting. Eventually, consolidation of Industry bodies will take place. If enough people rally to the cause, eventually we will get there. He was most impressed with APAT's Season One efforts, and astonished by the added money in Season One & two in fact, & we talked a little APAT business, he wants to help APAT if he can, & he suggested some Mainland European Venues which may suit us, where he has influence. He says that very soon, every single Tourney over which he presides as TD will have WPA Rules, and for my part, I'm involved in setting up or helping to set up, more & more Events, & they'll all be under APAT rules. Softly softly......

We both agreed that non-poker Corporate sponsors (AND their money) is just waiting for poker to put it's house in order, & the money will come flooding in. And that Televised Tourneys take a liberty with players rights, they've paid their entry, yet get messed around for hours by TV peeps. That's so wrong, & it's hard to understand why players put up with it. Unless, of course, they get added money, which is a fair trade-off.

I did ask him one daft question about Rules - "what position should move when balancing tables?".......!

Typically thorough, he gave the reason, then the action.

1) No player should be more than is absolutely necessary advantaged or disadvantaged by Table Balancing. (So that threw the Shortstack thing right out of the window immediately!).

2) The Big Blind is moved, & he/she goes to the available position nearest (but before) the BB. (So that gets rid of all this running to your new table & fighting over the most favoured seat nonsense).

It's just extraordinary that some Venues still move the short stack. Things are gonna change.

[The_nun]

Thomas also called himself TK when we were in St Maart's last December, very well turned out,  thought he was trying to replica you Tony..Must say he did look after my hotel bill for an extra 2 nights so I softened to him, his partner tends to wear rather large sun glasses in comparisson to her rather petite pretty face if I remember right...what a life those two lead.. very envious I am.

[Yogi-Bear]

Look, it's just a case of saying, "if you ain't at in your seat when the tourney is ABOUT to begin, your seat will be offered to a Reserve, & your money refunded".

If it's that simple, why don't they do it? Because it means fiddling with the names on the Computer/Plasma Thing, & that's a bit of a ballache. We are increasingly ruled by Computer systems & lack pf imagination.

This was the rule I always used. It's no Hardship to make late entries and remove people from play on the Cardroom Magic system. Takes roughly 30 seconds per person.

And how long does it take to say thats your seat to someone and for them to sit down. Plenty of time whilst they are dealing. Most of these rules seem to have been put in place to save any hassle rather than look after people who have travelled to an event.

Yogi

[tikay]

Poker Week. With Johnny Gould and Compo both unavailable due to holidays, we needed a new Presenter for the this week's Show, & the finger of fate alighted on Michelle Orpe.

She took to it like a duck to water, & even rivalled Compo in the "how many takes can we do for a 30 second piece". She only managed 17, way short of Compo's record of 23......

But seriously, she was really very good.

Interviewing a Finalist who'd just exited, instead of the gut-wrenchingly feeble "well, you busted out 8th when your Aces were cracked by A-3, how do you feel"? (reach for sick-bag), she came up with a right purler.

The Final had been extremely tight & passive - remember, it took from 4pm to Midnight to go from 9 players to 7. The Final continued the theme, & we saw 2 flops in the first hour.

"The table seemed very tight" says our Heroine

"Yes" says long-faced bustee.

"So what changes did you make to your game to combat this tight play?" she says, delivering the perfect trap.

Now THAT's what's called a loaded question.

Oh, & the answer was, (though it's not relevant, it's the question that fascinated me), "nothing, what can you do, the table played tight so you have to go along with the table".

Flushy & Thewy would be choking on their cornflakes reading this.

Michelle may well go a long way in TV Poker Presenting.

[Rookie (Rodney)]

Oh, & the answer was, (though it's not relevant, it's the question that fascinated me), "nothing, what can you do, the table played tight so you have to go along with the table".

SIGH!

[tikay]

Oh, & the answer was, (though it's not relevant, it's the question that fascinated me), "nothing, what can you do, the table played tight so you have to go along with the table".

SIGH!

Yup, a stunning answer, but my point was, what a great question by Michelle, & her reward was that she got a great (if woefully wrong) answer.