Get It Quietly

Football, bollocks and a bit of poker if you're lucky.

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Location: Enfield, London, United Kingdom

Friday, February 25, 2005

Easy Target

I haven't stuck the boot into Paul Samuel for a while so why not. His latest piss-poor "bit of maths" on Pokerpages calculates everything to four significant figures, as usual, based on the assumption that people are going to have the same calling standards when you raise under the gun and when you raise on the button.

All pretty much as we would expect, but the only reason I read it at all was the moderately amusing typo in the introduction "the uncontested post is key". Most of this guys posts are uncontested, for the sole reason that no one cares. He always used to say that the volume of criticism he received was a measure of his popularity. How, I wonder, does he interpret the fact that everyone now ignores him ?

Except me just now, damn !!

16 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Lionel Hutz.....wotever happened to his hairbrained scheme of getting investors in to follow his tips? Did they all go skint or are they keeping quiet, busy counting their xtra cash and marveling at Mr Samuels genius

3:25 PM  
Blogger Big Dave D said...

You're fetish with Samuels is a bit of a leak...as is your continued posting on THM. I'm sure now that you are fully "pimp my ride" with a panoply of poker sites, all posts will strictly be Pay per View. And maybe, like DY, u can stop on that funny poker stuff.

gl

dd

PS. WHo is the latest benefactor of the Poker Wisdom?

6:21 PM  
Blogger Andy_Ward said...

Come on Dave, I thought you were all for a bit of boot-fillage while we can :-)

Andy.

7:46 PM  
Blogger David Young said...

A few months ago, there was some talk on Big Dave D's blog to the effect that I was partly responsible for ruining the Hendon Mob forum by getting involved in lots of discussions about politics.

Shortly afterwards I grew disillusioned with the forum and stopped posting on it on the 17th of November. Since then, does anyone think it's gotten better? I don't. I now find it amazingly boring and look at it about one fifth as much as I used to.

The problem wasn't the offtopic discussion, I don't believe, as much as the endless abuse dished out from total nobodies at anyone who presented a view. Combined with adoration of people who never contributed anything to the forum (Devilfish, Surinder and half of the Hendon Mob themselves), I began to wonder why I bothered. The more you write, the more people think they have the right to insult you. The move was obvious. Do nothing unless someone pays you.

Why Pete Birks continues to give away free content I don't know. He's one of the only worthwhile posters there left. Save it for Stan James, Pete! The fact is that the forum exists to promote the site and the site exists to renew the Mob's amazing deal with Prima. You are basically working for free to get Ross and Ram into comps. And they don't even send you a thankyou note!

Such is the power of fame.

DY

11:22 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

From Peter B
Believe it or not, David, I have my reasons for continuing to post on THM and Gutshot.

I think that you, Andy and any other right-thinking poker people (Simon?) should come round for lunch one Saturday and we could have a good chat about the way things are going. BTW, I'm not as critical of THM as you seem to be here. I don't expect a "thank-you" note or the like, and I am aware that THM is really a branding exercise. Good for them, I say, since I think that the site gives a lot back.

Whatever, let's try and get a date together sometime when neither Andy nor I nor you is in Vegas. That probably rules out any date before May!

Pete

8:42 AM  
Blogger Big Dave D said...

Andy,

I was teasing a bit about the the shilling...fill your boots! Whatever that means. And I dont have a problem with the THM thing either, evryone is entilted to change their minds, except DY. I do feel somewhat let down by the THM thing tho, which I know is naive. My thoughts are that without the people in this thread, plus Chaos and the occasional Camel, the forum would have never taken off and really the only people that benefitted from our activity were the Mob, who on the basis of their activity, hardly deserved it. Yes I know it was always a commercial thing and I am just being twee and sentimental, its just that I always felt/hoped it could be so much more.

As to your point DY, it was myself who said that you were a major contributing factor in the decline of THM. I dont mean that maliciously, nor do I believe u acted with anything other than what you saw were the best motives. The problem is, once a forum goes off track, the Internet being the place it is, it soon attracks more "offtrack" posters, until eventually it becomes almost completely a non-pokerforum. This is what happened at rgb to an extreme extent and to rgp to a lesser one.

9:02 PM  
Blogger David Young said...

A major contributing factor? Come on! That's a bit harsh. Anyway, after 14 weeks of silence from me, things should get back to normal. They don't, because I'm not the only person who's held back from writing due to the level of abuse. And although there are doubtless others who have something to say, they have by now seen what we have had to endure. Only a couple of weeks ago, a friend of mine who has a lot of interesting opinions to give in private said to me that he could never do what I did before - he could never have coped with the insults that would fly back at him.

None of this would matter if the people who were prepared to dish out the abuse were contributing anything of interest themselves. But they aren't. Once they have attacked someone (could be me, could be Vicky, you, the camel or whoever) that's it. They don't come up with some content themselves. Their contribution is completely negative. They are reaping what they have sowed. I hope they are happy with the current diet of anonymous Victor-Chandler-is-rigged posts that they are now reading. That's what they wanted and that's what they have got.

1:54 AM  
Blogger Big Dave D said...

Maybe I was a bit harsh. Catalyst might be better. The thing is, once they change, they change for good unless another major catalyst happens. And in general to move from a nonsense to a sensible forum is much harder.

By and large, trolls stay away from persisently ontrack forums, unless they are particularily deranged. There's just no fun tobe had there. However, once they get responded to, and the flames begin, then it starts to keep away proper posters and further attract trolls. I used to label you a "well meaning troll". Not because you are a troll...you have way to much integrity for that...but because the kind of posting you did acted as nectar to the bees of the real trolls. And THM was lost.

11:12 AM  
Blogger steve said...

DY: I have to say I look at the Mob's forum perhaps once a week - and then it's for 10 minutes. It is ill thought out proposition of DY's to suggest that if the was the cause of the demise of the Mob's forum, that it should return to normal after he has gone. I'm struggling for an analogy here, perhaps in biology (impact of viruses/dieases) or physics but can't quite find it. Needless to say not every action has a counter action. Take two viscous liquids and then put them in a jar. Stir it. Can you seperate them, by coming up with a counter-stir? I'm sure there are economic analogies that you could furrnish.

I agree, though, with Dave that it was the bee's around honey (as opposed to flies...!) that caused the majority of problems.

Things would never return to normal because the players aren't there. My reasons for not posting there lie beyond the disatisfaction at the quality of the threads. It is for similar reasons that you cite. I added value for them on the forum and once off it in a late night off-the-cuff email suggesting ways that they might improve things (at their behest i might add, some of which I'm sure was undertaken), but I didn't feel I was getting too much in return.

Now I may not have had as much time for your posts as some, but, in fairness, from the Mob's perspective you undoubtedly added more value to the forum than me.

So I can empathise with your grievance adding making the Mob fat on your brand of success. That said, of course, you must be wary of spiting yourself: if you got a lot out of posting there then perhaps you shouldn't have abandoned it.

The Mob probably could return to how it was if a few of us returned, but I have no desire to do so, as, I suspect, do others. I can't say I wouldn't change my mind, I've done so in the past, but it sure isn't going to happen soon. I suppose it could serve a purpose if I needed to build a brand in some way to write for sites.

The bottom line is that things have changed. In particular blogs have created a far greater diversity and created islands of opportunity and interest for many people.

While the blogs have been successful and Big Dave D, in particular, has done exceptionally well in maintaining 2 or 3 poker-related posts a week (No slight Andy, but you're gonna spread it thin now) - a rod for his own back if you ask me - they have perhaps precipitated a missed opportunity.

The 'players' (both on & off topic) on the Mob forum could have created another site and done a proper job from a whole number of angles. I would be very surprised if took long for folk to migrate. I'm not adverse to blogs, I have toyed with the idea of one but I know it would be intermittent - I'd have to write all the articles and then slow release them.

Anyway, is certainly right to fill his boots but don't kill the golden goose. My advice would be too stick to one or two sites, because the quality would go down as original material becomes harder to churn out on a daily basis.

chaos

2:14 PM  
Blogger steve said...

Anyway, Andy is....

2:40 PM  
Blogger steve said...

I just had a look at the Mob and saw this got some prime time viewing. I saw the link to DY's article and largely agree with it.

Re gutshot: haven't been there and no nothing of it. But I would categorise them with DF, any benefits to british poker is incidental. Of course the DF has benefitted the game, but I'm sure he doesn't care. Would gutshot happily trade cash for benefit-to-uk-poker? I doubt it, only if they did and it wasn't converted to ££'s down the line could they be accused of valuing such a thing on its merits alone.


Oh yeah what's with the ' 'chaos' ' - am I a curious article?

4:16 PM  
Blogger Big Dave D said...

TO say the content on Andy's strategy site is spreading a little thin would be an understatement...it's become more like "Secrets of the Autistic."

Cmon Andy...give us something to chew on. And no the last post doesnt really count :)

dd

1:42 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

There is a new forum worth trying on best-hand.com. Feel free to register there we need the support as it is still very new. Also if any one would like links on this site email me at skalie@best-hand.com

10:58 AM  
Blogger steve said...

'and Big Dave D, in particular, has done exceptionally well in maintaining 2 or 3 poker-related posts a week'

commentator's curse, huh?

3:53 PM  
Blogger Big Dave D said...

Ok OK its a commin :)

tx 4 the kind words btw.

gl

dd

4:06 PM  
Blogger Andy_Ward said...

Skalie,

I haven't been back to best-hand.com since I read Paul Jackson's comments about how he was right to abuse bad players and that you should even do it when you're not in the hand.

IMO those comments were particularly thoughtless and bad for poker in general.

Andy.

6:39 PM  

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