Vegas & The Aftermath - Diary

[Colchester Kev]

Guardian http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2009/mar/27/achilleas-kallakis-fraud-inquiry

Standard http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23669085-details/Mayfair%E2%80%99s+poker+%E2%80%98Don%E2%80%99+who+gambled+it+all/article.do

[LLevan]

7k seems very small fry now.........it just amazes me how greedy the banks were and the total lack of due diligence shown.

[Dingdell]

7k seems very small fry now.........it just amazes me how greedy the banks were and the total lack of due diligence shown.

Karma.

[cambo]

Guardian http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2009/mar/27/achilleas-kallakis-fraud-inquiry

Standard http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23669085-details/Mayfair%E2%80%99s+poker+%E2%80%98Don%E2%80%99+who+gambled+it+all/article.do

wow real advanced grim lol unreal

[tikay]

A few weeks back, the much-vaunted "London Poker Circuit" arrived, amid much fanfare, Launch Parties & hoohah.

How is this going, anyone know? Many runners, any excitement, who's playing it/them?

Just curious.

[Claw75]

A few weeks back, the much-vaunted "London Poker Circuit" arrived, amid much fanfare, Launch Parties & hoohah.

How is this going, anyone know? Many runners, any excitement, who's playing it/them?

Just curious.

dunno

[KarmaDope]

A few weeks back, the much-vaunted "London Poker Circuit" arrived, amid much fanfare, Launch Parties & hoohah.

How is this going, anyone know? Many runners, any excitement, who's playing it/them?

Just curious.

I think Sam Trickett won the first one, and that there was about 20 runners :S

[tikay]

Leving aside One Day Cricket, so banal that it never needed much dumbing down by the red tops, if you wanted to read superbly written cricket reports of Test Matches & English County Cricket, it had to be The Times. It says much that CMJ & Atherton were mere lightweights compared to Woodcock & Co. I must have a dozen books written by "The Times" Cricket correpondents down the years.

As a kid, I dreamed of watching a whole Test Match, every ball of every over, with my own little scorecard, a'la my hero, Bill Frindle, the Bearded Wonder.  It remains one unticked item - among many - on my bucket list, which I planned to address when I retired, but I seem to have made a bit of a mess of retirement. Watching every race of Cheltenham & Royal Ascot were others, & every hole of The Open, & The Masters, though the last-named was never possible due to Augusta's restricted coverage. And the Trooping of the Colours, and the Last Night of the BBC Proms. And every frame of every nature prog David Attenborough ever filmed. Anyway, I digress, back to cricket writing.

It came as a bit of a shock to note the writing prowess of Stephen Brenkley, who does the Cricket reports for, of all papers, The Indepndent, increasingly a cross between the Mail & The Guardian. He is just sensational.

Here he is, writing of the enigmatic genius & Mardy Bum that is Kevin Pietersen, after KP got saucy in the West Indies & threw one of his regular hissy fits.

"........Pietersen came to St Lucia having told the whole world that all he wants to do is go home, and the suspicion could not be wholly eradicated that his tean-mates were having a whip-round to buy the ticket.....".

Class writing - oh to be be able to flow like that.

But The Times summed up Rooney pretty well, recently - "an angel with a dirty face". Original? No. But the perfect subject for the cliche. Comparing Rooney with Berbatov, they suggested Rooney covered more yards than any player on the pitch, whilst Berbatov wandered around listlessly dreaming of curtains.

I think, more than anything else, I would love to have been a writer, polishing the words, getting it "just so".

I once wrote a poker article - the one that started my off-table poker adventures, 6 or 7 years ago, & led to so many things - which I felt was perfect in every respect, word for word. It got published here & there, then Poker Europa recruited me as a result of it, & then it all went silly, with TV & stuff.

The piece was in the first person, describing a Final I played, in Luton. (Pass, Pass, Pass Pass Pass I suppose). I'm gonna look it up, but I bet it reads like poo now. Probz best not to spoil the memory.

[celtic]

dig it out and let us have a read please.

[Claw75]

dig it out and let us have a laugh please.

are there many train analogies in it?

[tikay]

I found the piece, & my memory was playing tricks, for it was in the third person, & describes a guy called tikay struggling to go the pace. Nothing changed there then. It was written nearly 5 years ago, wow, where did the years go?

The article is snugly hidden away, deep down in the bowels of the Internet, where it can stay. It actually still reads quite well (to my eye), though it smacks of having been fretted & fussed over for hours on end to make it read "jst so". I'm actually still quite proud of it, but whatever, handsome is as handsome does, because it's amazing how much work it led to, how many doors it opened, all that pain a pleasure, with Sporting Odds, Poker Week, Game-ON TV, Hendon Mob, Cardplayer, Poker Europa, Poker Weekly (an American newspaper), blonde, APAT, Poker 425, Poker Night Live, Sky Poker, Poker Week, & In-Poker. All stemming from one little article. How lucky did I get?

The players in that Final, (£200PL Hold'Em at a Luton Fessie) by the way, many are still around, were.....

Martin Farragher, £9,500

Micky Jones, £6,500

Sonny Osman, £3,120

Tikay, £2,130

Dave Codus, £1,500

B Bravery, £1,000

R Lynch, £870

Graham Pound, £750

J Patel, £630


I've got a touch of the reminiscences tonight. It's therapy for a bad day I think.

[tikay]

dig it out and let us have a read please.

Best not to Vinny, it's probably a "beauty is in the eye of the beholder" things. And poker was different then, & I just know the Kidz would mock me to death for it.

[The-Crow]

Sorry to hear your leaving.Good luck with Saga TV, all the best Crow

[tikay]

dig it out and let us have a laugh please.

are there many train analogies in it?

Sadly not.

[tikay]

Sorry to hear your leaving.Good luck with Saga TV, all the best Crow

Err, thank you. It's been emotional.