Vegas & The Aftermath - Diary

[tikay]

On Monday, we filmed for Poker Week in Birmingham, which hardly sounds interesting, but it sure was. Winterbourne Botanic Gardens was the location, & it is part of Birmingham University. It's near Edgbaston Cricket Ground, on Edgbaston Park Road, & having never seen a single part of Birmingham which I liked visually, or would like to live, Sutton Park apart, the houses on Edgbaston Park Road were just beautiful, really magnificent, & must be worth a fortune.

But better was to come, because within the Botanic Gardens there is the most magnificent house you ever saw, dates back to around 1920 at a guess. It sits in splendid gardens - now the University's Botanic Gardens - but it begged to be investigated. Sadly, I can't find a decent 'photo of it, even on google images.

So, this house. It was owned originally by the Nettlefold Family, before passing through several owners & thence being gifted to the Uni.

The Nettlefold family are a story in themselves. John Nettlefold opened a hardware store in Holborn - on the very site where Sainsbury's dreadful Head Office now sits - in 1825, & he started making metal wood screws. Big deal. Wood screws? Well, he did OK, & 30 years later, discovered someone in America who was making metal wood screws, & was prepared to grant him a licence to make them in the UK. Allowing for a new factory, & steam-powered machinery, it set him back £30,000 - imagine how much that was back in 1854! He set the factory up in Smethwick, Birmingham, & dispatched one of his Sons, Joseph, to run the factory. They made metal wood screws by the billion, Nettlefold's partner eventually died, & Nettlefold in later years became part of Guest Keen Nettlefold, later re-named GKN, these days GKN plc.

The old man eventually died of what is described as "apoplexy", which seems odd, I did not know you could die by being extremely cross, but in those days, &, in medical terms even now, apoplexy does not mean what we usually take it to mean - it actually refers to the loss of blood from a major body organ - in lay terms, a heart attack or brain heamorrage.

So that's how GKN began. My first job was as a Builders Merchant's Apprentice, & I must have sold tens of thousands of GKN metal wood screws. Thry came in beautiful brown cardboard boxes, with green labels depicting the size & gauge.

Screws are something we take for granted, but they are well useful. A piece of metal, helically grooved with a slot at the top. That's it. The slot was different sizes, & we had small & medium & large screwdrivers, simple.

Then some idiot got clever, & invented the phillips screw, & "pozidriv" screws, & suddenly the simple screw became part of the family of the awfully-named "industrial fasteners" collection, & we now needed lots of different types of screwdrivers.

So, screws are now Industrial Fasteners, just as doors are now being called, from what I recently saw on a Besam Lorry (Besam make Automatic Opening Doors) "Entrance Solutions"! By the by, Besam make those automatic doors you see in Sainburys & Tesco & Aldi. The sliding doors are not known as sliding doors these days though - they call them "bi-parters". FFS. 

God Bless John Sutton Nettlefold. I bet they made sure his coffin-lid was well-screwed on.

[boldie]

On a door note. I played poker with a guy in Glasgow who travels all over Europe supervising guys who put in sliding doors for the likes of Tesco, Lloyds TSB and all that..he'll regularly spend a few weeks or so abroad overseeing 1 door being put in..how good a job is that? You show up and watch other people put a door in and you go play poker when you're finished (gibraltar has a very decent pokerscene apparently)

[RED-DOG]

Imagine asking some nubile young thing if she fancied a quick industrial fastener.

[tikay]

I spent all yesterday trying to catch up on e-Mails, & whilst doing so, I decided to play "The Daddy" last night. It's so well structured that you can pretty much sit-out for the first 3 or 4 hours, & work away at the e-mail pile, & play on "auto pilot", only really starting to "play" when it gets to 4 tables.

4 tables out, 150 players had bust out, I'd not seen barely a hand, but one double up would get me back in. So I started concentrating on it, & was soon above average. Suddenly, it was Bubble-Time, & I'm in good shape. I dropped Tom a PM - "Bubble-time in the Daddy" - & he put up a PRO Bugle Call. I busted out the next hand in a shocker of a play. A shocker as in "unforced error". How on earth could I make such a basic error, on the Bubble, sat with loads of chips, & with $600 awaiting me once one player bust out? Crazy. Loss of concentration, no other excuse, because I know better than to dance on the Bubble.

Tom had busted very early (for him), but had Finalled as Chip Daddy in the later "second chance" affair, & I'd have bet anything he'd get a top Three Cash, but we went 6th or 7th, in somewhat odd circumstances, playing 7-7 strongly, & then his 9-9 got muffed by a lucky straight. Watch Tom & you'll realise, he ain't the Rock he's made out to be.....

Frustrated by my stupid & thorougly deserved Bubble, I sat down in an Omaha Cash Game, & soon ran $1,000 up to just under $3,000, whahoo. Time to go time, obviously. OK, I'll get up & leave in 15 minutes. And, predictably, I did another really stupid thing, getting mixed up with a lunatic (God Bless Omaha Lunatics) when I thought I had the best of it. Top set, up & down straight draw, flush draw, & the straight draw had all the re-draws to the high end. Suddenly, he re-popped my Flop bet, & there was $4,600 in the middle, & I only had $1,400 behind......Jeez, how did I get into this spot? It went in, for a $6k pot, I missed, he caught the BOTTOM end of the straight, & I'd done nearly $3k in one hand.

How bad did I feel after that? A stupid Bubble error cost me $600, & after winning $2k, I threw it away, with another $1k just to make me feel even worse.

And why? Because I was too tired to concentrate properly.

What an idiot.

[Bainn]

Get a quick nap before tonight as I'm guessing there may be some friendly cash games going on.......

[tikay]

After finishing "work" at The Broadway on Saturday, I could not resist sitting in their Omaha Cash-Game for an hour or two, & I soon run £500 up to £1,500, then ran it back to £1,100, but that's OK, a profit is a profit.

Tidy game, too. Dave Colclough had been in earlier & put his name down for the Table, but I never saw him & he must have gone home. Ash Pervais, Darren Grosvenor, Fari Badmansour (boy oh boy, he can't 'arf play Omaha), & the usual Broadway regulars, it was huge fun.

They don't play Super-Stud there, but it appeared all the regulars fancied it, so we organised a Super-Stud Cash Game for later this week, & I'm going across to play it.

Super-Stud fascinates me. I play it badly, & cautiously, but I'm learning fast, & I love it. We play it most of the time in the Luton Dealers Choice game, & it's historically one of the the most popular cash-games in Nottingham. Sadly, DTD say they won't be laying it, which I find odd, & I'd cajoled the Luton Cash-Game regulars to come up to DTD, so that's a shame, but I guess we'll get by.

So, the game at The Broadway went on a bit, & suddenly it was 0330, & "last 3 hands". (The Brodway, surprisingly, still close early on Saturday nights). Now, if you have any sense, you should ALWAYS miss the "last three hands". It's "get out of trouble" or "play up your winnings" time, & everyone piles in, the pots get huge & the game gets silly. Trust me, I've done so much money during "last three".

First hand of the last three, I have to get involved with double-suited Aces, & I invested £200 before quitting on a bad flop - only to hit runner-runner quads for a £2,500 Pot if I stayed in.....

And then I find the vey same hand on the last hand, & get caught up, & end up doing £600 in the hand. So I finish £200 down on the night.

When will I learn?

[RED-DOG]

Tom had busted very early (for him), but had Finalled as Chip Daddy in the later "second chance" affair, & I'd have bet anything he'd get a top Three Cash, but we went 6th or 7th, in somewhat odd circumstances, playing 7-7 strongly, & then his 9-9 got muffed by a lucky straight. Watch Tom & you'll realise, he ain't the Rock he's made out to be.....



I played the 77 that way because the original bet was made by a serial minimum-raiser who always let go when re-raised. I knew that the player who smooth-called the min raise wasn't strong, and was just trying to see a cheap flop, otherwise he would have re-raised the min raiser.

There was 24,000 in the pot and neither of the players involved had more than 8000 invested. My table image was very solid up to that point, I thought an all in of over 50,000 would win me a very nice pot. That being said, I wasn't too disappointed to see his A 10 when he called.

[tikay]

Tom had busted very early (for him), but had Finalled as Chip Daddy in the later "second chance" affair, & I'd have bet anything he'd get a top Three Cash, but we went 6th or 7th, in somewhat odd circumstances, playing 7-7 strongly, & then his 9-9 got muffed by a lucky straight. Watch Tom & you'll realise, he ain't the Rock he's made out to be.....



I played the 77 that way because the original bet was made by a serial minimum-raiser who always let go when re-raised. I knew that the player who smooth-called the min raise wasn't strong, and was just trying to see a cheap flop, otherwise he would have re-raised the min raiser.

There was 24,000 in the pot and neither of the players involved had more than 8000 invested. My table image was very solid up to that point, I thought an all in of over 50,000 would win me a very nice pot. That being said, I wasn't too disappointed to see his A 10 when he called.

And what a call THAT was - his entire Tourney with A-T! How do these guys make any money? You could have AA, KK, QQ, JJ, AK or AQ & he'd be in a pile of poo. Wow.

[AndrewT]

Imagine asking some nubile young thing if she fancied a quick industrial fastener.

I fear, no matter how it were phrased, the answer would be the same.

[tikay]

Now that the Flushster is back, he may be interested in some civil aeronautical acronyms I spotted yesterday while reading a book about Mr O'Leary, he of Ryanair fame. Flushy, in case you did not know, has a Pilot's Licence. Went to the same school as where Brendan Hartnett learned to drive, probably.

Anyway, you've heard the expression "chirp", but I bet you never know there really is an official "Chirp" acronym. It's for when Pilots & Air-Traffic Controllers want to anonymously "whistle-blow" air traffic incidents. It stands (inaccurately) for "Confidential Human (Factor) Incident Reporting Programme". So there.

And more, there is a website called PPRuNe - "Professional Pilots Rumour Network". I'm off to take a gander, there may be some dirt on the Flushster. I'm aching to Ban him for Chirping.

[taximan007]

But better was to come, because within the Botanic Gardens there is the most magnificent house you ever saw, dates back to around 1920 at a guess. It sits in splendid gardens - now the University's Botanic Gardens - but it begged to be investigated.

Winterbourne is a rare surviving example of an early 20th century suburban villa garden. The house was built in 1903 for John and Margaret Nettlefold, of Guest, Keen & Nettlefold. Designed as a small country estate the house boasted rustic outbuildings and large gardens.

Margaret Nettlefold designed the garden, inspired by the books and garden designs of Gertrude Jekyll. Both the house and garden follow the style of the Arts & Crafts movement.

[tikay]

OMG, do NOT go to that "PPPRuNe Website.

It's a Forum, & the first three Threads I saw were titled.....

737 Uncontained engine failure.

737 Engine falls off wing in Capetown

Iberia A340 skids off runway.

Jeez......

[TightEnd]

Sign up to PPPRuNe and start an 0/T Two word Plane story. I dare ya.

[tikay]

But better was to come, because within the Botanic Gardens there is the most magnificent house you ever saw, dates back to around 1920 at a guess. It sits in splendid gardens - now the University's Botanic Gardens - but it begged to be investigated.

Winterbourne is a rare surviving example of an early 20th century suburban villa garden. The house was built in 1903 for John and Margaret Nettlefold, of Guest, Keen & Nettlefold. Designed as a small country estate the house boasted rustic outbuildings and large gardens.

Margaret Nettlefold designed the garden, inspired by the books and garden designs of Gertrude Jekyll. Both the house and garden follow the style of the Arts & Crafts movement.

wow, thank you - that's the place! The gardens are quite splendid, with a japanese bridge, a lovely lake, & some babbling streams. Gorgeous, really gorgeous.

[Bongo]

The photos of the plane hit by a bird are a bit... scary!