Vegas & The Aftermath - Diary

[tikay]

All the Presenters & Analysts took turns to play The Open, Live on TV, & the best three qualified for the Sunday Showdown Final.

are you playing in the final?

Yes.

Well, technically, no.

[Claw75]

All the Presenters & Analysts took turns to play The Open, Live on TV, & the best three qualified for the Sunday Showdown Final.

are you playing in the final?

Yes.

Well, technically, no.

ah - I understand.  Giving the others a chance, right?

[tikay]

All the Presenters & Analysts took turns to play The Open, Live on TV, & the best three qualified for the Sunday Showdown Final.

are you playing in the final?

Yes.

Well, technically, no.

ah - I understand.  Giving the others a chance, right?

Got it.

It's Tonight - I forgot to mention that, so Good Luck to the lucky Three.

The Finalists are Compo, Kara Scott, & Trevor Harris.

This is what the Sky Poker website says of Compo......

London born Dave ‘Compo' Compton has worked in racing since 1977. An inauspicious start as a betting shop manager, 3 hours late due to the date coinciding with the Queens Jubilee, set the tone for a career that has been just that, the verb rather than the noun. Having worked for both Coral and Ladbrokes in a number of capacities he settled in at The Racing Channel before joining At the Races.                                                 

Dave has now turned his hand to poker and is a regular player. This has lead to Dave presenting on Sky pokers ‘Poker week'. He works along side recognised faces on The Open, such as TK and this year Dave travelled to the World Series in Las Vegas, where he met and interviewed some of the biggest players in the world. Dave says his life time ambition is to have pocket aces in a "heads-up" on the final table of the World Series of Poker with his short stacked opponent holding KQ.

Dave says that if he hadn't got into horse racing that he would be an international playboy!

In his Sunday Showdown Heat, Dave finished 15/421.


And of Kara, they continue.....

Originally from Northern Canada, Kara Scott trained as a thai boxer, competing 6 times in the ring. She now commentates on the sport of kickboxing and is a regular face to fans of televised poker and backgammon.

She appeared in The Movie sucker punch in which she co stared with actor Antonio Fargas who played Huggy Bear in Starsky and Hutch. She also dreams of appearing in a film with Jackie Chan!


Kara  presented the 2006 World Series of Backgammon for Eurosport, as well as appearing in and producing feature films. She Presented on Poker Night Live and is now a familiar face and favorite with sky poker viewers.

She's been trying to play more live poker in the past year and has been playing online poker more seriously for about a year and a half.

In Vegas during the World Series she managed to play in a PokerStars tournament against many big players and was lucky enough to last longer than Luca Pagano, Joe Hachem, Greg Raymer, Tom Mcevoy, Chris Moneymaker, Vanessa Rousso, Isabelle Mercier and come 5th.  Greg Raymer dealt for a while on a table she was playing on and gave her some great advice on bet sizes.

In her Sunday Showdown heat, Kara finished 19/409

And finally, here's the entry for Trevor Harris, who is, by the way, a close pal of Compo, they work together at ATR. I only include Trevor, the only non-blonde amongst the Three Finalists, as a sneaky chirp, for the content of the penultimate sentence.....

An accomplished national broadcaster and sports journalist and a regular football commentator for ITV and its various associated channels.

Trevor's early career was all about newspapers - at first delivering them, then when he was 15, writing for them. There was a two-week crossover period where he found himself delivering the very paper he was writing for. He worked at the Racing Post before becoming Assistant Sports Editor of the Sunday Mirror at just 22 years of age.

He then moved to Sky Television as a sports presenter and producer before becoming Sports Editor of Teletext and overseeing the start of their new franchise in the early ‘90s. 

Whilst at Sky, he was lucky enough to meet his two biggest heroes - former West Indies cricketer Viv Richards (who he interviewed in Antigua) and the American singer-songwriter Don McLean (of American Pie fame). 

Curiously, when just 15, Trevor had met Don McLean at the Cambridge Folk Festival when he found myself sitting next to his manager, and ended up chatting in Don's caravan for an hour!

In addition to his freelance work, Trevor has run his own sports production company for the past 10 years.

Trevor's last performance on Sky Poker saw him finish 244th out of 551, the same show that Tikay won the tournament.

In his Sunday Showdown Heat, Trevor finished 47/436.

[tikay]

"Bloody raining again I see, it gets on my nerves, the bloody weather"

So said the lady behind the till in my corner-shop Co-Op today. Her & a million others, it's likely.

Conveniently forgetting that without rain, we will all die. All of us. Soon.

There is not a single product I can think of, that we use, drive, eat, whatever, that, at some stage, does not need water to aid it's preparation or production. All supervised by Humans, who can't live without water.

It falls out of the sky, completely free. And animals, plants, humans can't live without it. Grass grows, cows eat it, we eat cows. Oranges need water to grow, as do tomatoes, potatoes, eveything. Steam Engines relied on it. Without water, we are all dead.

Yet most peeps moan when it rains. Strange world we live in.

In years to come, I think the current age will be known as the Age of the Moaning Minnies, the glass half-full merchants, the missogs. I even moan when they rain on my parade.

Amazing thing water, you know. Ice, by all physical laws, should not float. But it does. Totally illogically. It neither smells nor tastes, yet we crave it, to drink, & yet if we submerge ourself in it for more than a few minutes, we drown. We are 65% water, a cow is 73% water, & a tomato is 95% water. Water can kill, by sheer force, or by drowning, & yet save lifes, by dousing fires & giving us fluid.

Water - naturally - will not flow uphill, & always finds it's own level. It's guaranteed never to fail. It's how Spirit Levels used to work, before the days of laser levels. It's why sewer smells don't come up through our toilets, because the loo has an "s-trap" or "p-trap" which contains a water-lock, because water has to find it's own level.

It's the thing, above all else, we most need, & most take for granted.

I tried that on the Co-Op Lady, she said "Don't give me all that, my washing is on the line". I never thought of that.

[boldie]

I tried that on the Co-Op Lady, she said "Don't give me all that, my washing is on the line". I never thought of that.

[Laxie]

You've referred to 'glass half full' people as if they're negative a few times lately, but that's not what's meant by 'glass half full' types.  I've googled the meaning for you:

Optimists view this glass as half full, because there is still plenty left to enjoy; pessimists view the very same glass as half empty, because so much of it is gone already.

And I'm pretty sure FTW = for the win.   

[tikay]

At DTD, players are allowed to bring Lappies to the Table, & play Online Poker on them. On DTD, obviously. And if I were Rob Yong, I'd let them too, after all, it's the Online Room that has helped pay for the Live Club. But it does frustrate me somewhat, & I'm struggling to find a way to deal with that frustration. After all, I play poker to enjoy myself, so if something about it frustrates me, I need to find a mental mechanism to handle it. It's my hang-up, so I have to solve it.

The frustration comes from several things, but the thrust of it is that the player is not paying attention, & so the other 8 players all have to wait for the inevitable delay when it gets to Lappie-man. We can barely see him, either, he has the Lappie on the Rail, & his head is half-hidden behind the Lappie-Lid.

A lad I've known since I began playing Poker was Lappie-Man on Friday night. He's a cheery soul, & we've never had a cross word. I like him plenty. But, in two orbits, every single hand when it got to him, he had to be made aware. "Post your BB please". "You to act mate". After, of course, a 20 second delay. Which 8 of us endured patiently. Then came the questions. Variously.....

"Is it me to act?". Err, yes.

(Throws in a call, we tell him it's been Raised). "Oh, sorry, by who??". (Seat Three mate). "How much?". "Anyone else call the Raise?". We all answer. At the same time, as we're a bit frustrated, so it has to be repeated.

Flop is dealt. Rinse, repeat.

He Raised it one time, it got to me, I have A-Q, & re-Raise. Delay, he's playing a big hand, Online. I know, because he told us. "I'll just play this hand". No rush chap......

He gets back to us eventually, & moves in on me, this is serious. I need to think now, & I look at him. Well, the top half of his head. The rest is hidden behind the Lappie. This is for my Tourney, or his, & I need to get a feel for where we are. Meanwhile, my opponent has turned round & shouted across the room to another Lappie-Man, in the same (Online) Tourney, "what you have? - I had 9-9". He's not even sat at the Table now, he's stood up & turned round to shout across to his buddy, let alone giving me the respect I think I deserve as an Oppo in the hand with him.

I can't quite put my finger on it, but it seems so disrespectful somehow, to the oppo in the hand, & to the whole table. I suppose it's the same as Online, when someone is multi-tabling, & always slow to act. They just don't seem to show any care for others, & I suppose they have no obligation so to do. Not in their little world, anyway.

I so wish I'd lived in an earlier age, when manners counted for something, when we were more chivalrous. And a Red Card for the first to suggest I did.

[Rookie (Rodney)]

I so wish I'd lived in an earlier age, when manners counted for something, when we were more chivalrous. And a Red Card for the first to suggest I did.

Stone age not early enough for you?

[gatso]

the DTD mobile phone ban is in place partly because they caught 2 people telling each other their cards.

what's to stop 2 people with lappies doing the same? it's actually much easier than by phone and less noticable too

[tikay]

You've referred to 'glass half full' people as if they're negative a few times lately, but that's not what's meant by 'glass half full' types.  I've googled the meaning for you:

Optimists view this glass as half full, because there is still plenty left to enjoy; pessimists view the very same glass as half empty, because so much of it is gone already.

And I'm pretty sure FTW = for the win.   

Well yes, optimists & pessimists I suppose, but it's wider than that to me. There's constructive & negative, there's try & solve the problem, or shout about it, there's the types who remember their bad beat but not sucking-out, moans about falling house-prices (Government's fault) but happily accepts rising house prices (I did a great deal there, buying that house cheap), & so on.

When I was working, I used to say good morning to all my Staff, "how are you today?". There were always those that replied "all right, I suppose, you have to be don't you?", & I could have slapped them round the bloody chops. Wassamatterwivpeople?

I think an optimist would say that glass was half-full of whisky, & a pessimist would say it was a half-empty flass of pee. They both look similar, it just depends on how you view life I suppose!

Oh, & it's bloody raining here. Oops.......

[Royal Flush]

yawn

moaning about moaning is so lame, just get on with it for God's sake

Nice and sunny here.....Brighton FTW

[AndrewT]

DTD lets people play on laptops at a live table? That's ridiculous.

Especially given they don't allow mobile phones because of the collusion risk - has Simon Trumper not heard of MSN?

Allow them to play on DTD on their laptops away from the table by all means, but playing at the table is crazy, and leads to the situation Tikay described.

[tikay]

the DTD mobile phone ban is in place partly because they caught 2 people telling each other their cards.

what's to stop 2 people with lappies doing the same? it's actually much easier than by phone and less noticable too

I've never seen two players on the same Table using a Lappie, & I don't think DTD would allow that. One can understand why they allow it, but I don't think I'm alone in finding it frustrating. But it's not the end of the world, & I'll find a way to handle it better.

[tikay]

yawn

moaning about moaning is so lame, just get on with it for God's sake

Nice and sunny here.....Brighton FTW

Flushy in "Gets It Right" Shocker!

You're right JD. It's been some fortnight. Bloody shoelaces keep breaking.

[Laxie]

When you asked them how they were, were you genuinely prepared to hear anything other than, 'I'm good, how are you?' 

I'm all for saying hello, good morning or whatever, but you never hear me ask how you are unless I genuinely care and want to know.  People who ask 'How are you today' as they breeze past on their way to their next greeting do me head in.