Talk Of The Devil

I see the Devilfish has opened his own online cardroom. I wonder if you can be banned for offensive chat ?

Ugh, I Feel Dirty

Because I've been on a forum. 1, 2, 3, Ewwwwwww ! I know. A colleague asked me to have a look at a post he made before it was deleted. In the event, it wasn't. The "moderators" all had their pop back, and then banned the poster's IP address. Classy.

On a completely unrelated topic, here's a post that really made me laugh. Particularly at the end when I was nailed bang to rights as an "Old School Poker Tosser". In truth that is exactly how I felt about 18 months ago (you can check the archives if you care). Don't worry though Jo, in a little while you reach the state of enlightenment where you just get it quietly [1] online and laugh.

Neatly linking the two together, while I was knee deep in the swamp I had a wade around. A guy asked a question about a totally basic blind v blind situation, and to boot, one of those situations that you should only ever be in if you lose 90% of your chips on the previous hand. Fair enough, we all have to start somewhere, but the setting was last weekend's £1500 comp at the Vic. Did anyone mention the words "game selection" ? Take a guess. If they had, no doubt the word "satellite" would have been the main thrust of the response.

The link (I'm getting there) is DY's comment on Jo's blog about a Scandinavian visitor thinking that the young British players were generally weak. This forum post certainly backed it up. I don't know what people are thinking, I really don't. There's big enough EV in these main events with all the satellites, but man you need a big plate to be able to eat it.

[1] Well, fairly quietly

Countdown

Although work didn't push back as much as they might have done regarding me leaving, they did dig their heels in about the timing and asked me to see out most of my notice. For sure I don't have to, in that you can do anything you like in this life if you're prepared to face the consequences, but while it would be a sad day if I ever did go back, there's no point burning any bridges. So my red-letter day is now June 22nd. Till then I'm still on a 4-day week, so with some judicious days off and the normally ridiculous 3 bank holidays in 6 weeks, I should just about be able to cope. I'm trying to live my weekends with about the same level of poker-playing as I expect to be putting in when it's "for real", so this gives me some time to ease into it and sort my new flat out as well. Fixed a gas leak there this morning which is a start [1].

The countdown is quite easy, all I have to do is add 13 days to the increasingly frenetic World Cup countdowns. I have no intention of cracking regarding the TV - after all I hardly watched any of the last one, now I think of it. In any case I should be ok for the latter stages because on Day 6 I will be straight off to Vegas, for anything from two weeks up, depending on how profitable/enjoyable it proves !

[1] Not me personally of course. I stood there while they fixed it.

So Long, Schlubs !

So, today I went into work and told them I wanted to quit. They were fine about it, to be fair they've always dealt with people professionally and very well. I was expecting a grilling off the Chief Exec but he was sympathetic to the point of concerned. Wheels are in motion and I should be out of there in a month or two. Free ! Free I tells ya !

All this has come about because of a combination of factors. Mostly I'm just tired of the job. Only this week I was trying to fix someone's test code. They had set up this routine so that passing in zero meant "leave this field absent", and anything else meant "set it to this value". Evidently at some point it had dawned on them that sometimes they needed to set a field to zero. So did they add parameters for presence/absence ? Define a constant that implied absence, set to a high value that would never be used ? Or decide that to set a field to zero, one should pass in -2, comment this in one place only, and let some other cunt worry about it ? You've got it in one.

I don't need to put up with this when I have 10 years living expenses in the bank and I can cover the nut playing poker one hour a day. I am buying a flat which will cut my expenses considerably. That was the other factor that pushed me over the edge this week. I didn't want to scam anyone, and it seemed a bit sneaky to arrange a mortgage based on having a salary of X, and then promptly quit. I explained it to the bank and basically they couldn't care less as long as the payments keep coming in. Another quiz for you, was this a) because I have banked with them for 8 years, am putting up a sizeable deposit and have a sound overall history or b) because as long as all their boxes are ticked, they'll lend money to anyone, worst case being that I default and they can have my flat for hooker/cocaine parties. Not a certainty this one but on the balance of probability I'm going with b.

So any day now I will be joining the ranks of the idle. Modern day heroes like Bad Beat, The Camel, Titmus and DY. The only thing is, since I made the decision, 15 Sit and Goes, 3 cashes, 0 wins. It's just a test of faith ...

Time To Move On

Wheels are in motion. Hopefully I will soon be joining the ranks of the idle ... well, just the idle, quite frankly. I will keep you posted, and not say too much yet as I don't want to jinx it !

In the meantime, a great quote from someone else who's moving on. The very funny Phil Gordon had this to say on leaving his presenting gig with "Celebrity Poker Showdown" :

"I no longer have any contracted obligations to the producers of Celebrity Poker Showdown, so I am ready to move on… After 42 episodes of Celebrity Poker, I just want to see people play in turn, bet more than $200 into a $5K pot, and know when they have the nuts. "

I'm surprised he managed 42 without going on a killing spree.

Old People ? They Don't Know They're Born !

I can't be having with this. I was reading a book by PJ O'Rourke the other day where he was jokingly comparing Social Security to a giant Ponzi scheme. Frankly I could see his point. We're all paying the dividends for the previous investors, in the hope that the next generation will do the same for us. Hmmm. I wonder what's going to happen in the end ?

We aren't going to get a bowl of rice. And as for people coming into the employment market at 18 now, you're having a laugh. If you're making more money than you need, whether it's through poker or more traditional means, buy a property as soon as you can and stick the rest under a mattress. Make sure you buy some planks to nail across the windows too when all the bills finally come in.

A Freeze-Out, Yes, We Get It

You have to hand it to Interpoker. They make their doggies jump for their titbits. From an Email I received today :

"Here at InterPoker we're taking our much-loved game to new, exciting and slightly dangerous frontiers through our very own Extreme Poker events...

Last year we held the world's first underwater poker game in St Kitts, this month, on March 29th, we're taking poker to the arctic ice fields of Finland and shuffling up in world’s largest snow castle for an Arctic Freeze Out Tournament!

If you think you're up to the challenge, we're giving you the chance to take part in the "Artic Freeze Out" against InterPoker pros Juha Helppi and Rob Varkonyi...!"

I hate the cold. Goes right through me. You should see me in my Albert Steptoe thermal underwear. Poor old Robert Varkonyi, hit the jackpot a year too early. While the next three are playing $20K Sit and Goes in Monte Carlo with Pokerstars picking up the tab, Rob gets to freeze his nuts off in Finland.

Attention Valyoo Seekers

Stan James are having a $10 tournament on Tuesday with a $7,600 WPT Reno package added for the winner. See you there !