Like Snoops, I will also be heading off to Vegas tomorrow, though my trip will be lasting the entire series and for that purpose, I've decided I'll need something to help focus and bring some sort of customary routine to keep me from becoming too disorganised during my time off. So beginneth this blog, which I'll be updating daily on the main site and linking back on this thread. I've not ever written an actual blog before, but expect it to go like my Omaha, start off poorly, show glimpses of possible promise before getting even worse and finish with a large amount of swearing and abuse and mutterings of never doing it again.
Originally, I wanted to come up with as mundane a title as possible, simply because there's just a preponderance of wacky and clever names of blogs and I needed something to separate this one from everyone else's. It was going to be 'White Middle-Class Man Attends Card-based Convention In The Desert' but that's simply too much of a mouthful, besides everyone here seems to think I'm posh anyway, but if I hear any whisperings then I'm going to have to get my butler to go to my estate and get my Grandfather's blunderbuss...
So then, I just thought I'll call it 'Homer's Odyssey', it fits perfectly along the lines of the classic story of a man's long journey of getting home, and also there's enough odd-looking monsters in
Vegas The Odyssey that makes it the ideal title.
For those of you, who have never been to the WSOP, it really is something else and I wish I could say that as a positive thing. Last year was my first experience, and, having pretty much been sheltered by the well-run EPT's and GUKPT's, it was not a pleasant one. Within a couple of days, Jen, Snoops and I received a warning about posting more than once an hour on Blonde, and were told that if we did it again, we'd have our press badges confiscated. This rule is one of the main reasons why Blonde is not covering the WSOP this year, it negates the biggest advantage blonde has, which is our interactivity.
But to a certain extent, even without this rule, therein lies a second problem, which is access. Last year, Harrah's had a couple of people whose job was to seemingly to stop any press from doing anything that may relate to reporting whilst happily allowing 'name' players to get a perfect view inside the rail or random cute blondes of course. Now, obviously we all understand people doing their job, but it was the confrontational attitude that caused most of the problems. The ESPN cameras, who it's well known would kick out all reporters (including Pokernews) given half the chance, were even worse but, Snoops, ever the diplomat, tried to befriend them all, and was at least partially successful, though I was too stubborn to try and build bridges.
Pokernews people were much more helpful and generally passed on info when asked, their standard was pretty good last year which lead to one very funny episode where Cardplayer simply began copying and pasting all their chip counts but failed to notice when Dr Pauly (who'd gotten news of what CP were doing) began putting in random counts of famous rockstars and dead poker players.
Speaking of Pauly, if you're looking for [another] good blog to read over this summer about the WSOP, then I'd definitely recommend his Tao of Poker. It's usually a great mixture of the funny, the newsworthy and the occasional random $50 prop bet on eating chips or something. Recently though, BJ Nemeth (excellent US Poker reporter) guested on his blog, defending the WSOP Final delay. He raises a lot of good points, some of which have been countered by Brad 'Otis' Willis who has come up on the other side of the fence.
BJ Nemeth's Pro-Delay view:
http://taopoker.blogspot.com/2008_04_01_archive.html#8048460502137273219Otis' Anti-Delay View:
http://www.upforanything.net/poker/archives/the-wsop-final-table-delay-is-1.htmlMy own personal view is undecided, but probably clouded by a strong mistrust of Harrah's and how previous ploys that they've run have generally been disasters (See 'The Tent' last year - which isn't coming back) and their utter obsession with trying strangle every last bit of money out of this golden goose. If it works, I do think it'll be a big benefit to poker, but I just fail to see how the time delay can become a positive thing. If you're not into poker, then you're not really going to know who won the WSOP ME anyway in November, final played with a delay or no. So therefore, how does a one-day delay actually make any difference in attracting audiences? I suppose though you can always argue that if it doesn't work then you don't have to do it again next year, and also, at least it has got everyone talking about the Main Event which is undoubtedly a positive side-effect.
Hmmm, I've just read through this all, and it's very downbeat. Sorry about that. I promise something more uplifting when I'm hopefully writing the first proper entry tomorrow night from my room at the Rio.
As an effective antidote to all this depressing blogging, I leave you with my song of the day, 'The Banquet' by the Deadly Snakes. An excellent Canadian band, which like many bands I seem to discover, have already split up by the time I find them. It's a bluesy-rock song that sounds like nothing else on their album but it's definitely got that feet-tapping quality that's a rarity these days.
So now, I'm all packed, complete with a Snowdonia-sized mountain of socks, (12 hours on the Rio cardroom floor is a sock's ultimate enemy), now, if I can just manage to shut my suitcase...
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