On The Buses

In a confrontation between a double decker bus and a 4 inch long MP3 player, there's only going to be one winner. The trouble is that this would never have happened if I was a proper poker pro, for three reasons. I was on a bus (1) going to yoga (2). Poker players may not be aware of this, but London commuters might ; the double deckers are very cleverly designed so that when you are on the top deck, the bus will invariably lurch to a start/stop just as you are coming/going at the top of the stairs. How many Senior Bus Pass owners are pitched down the stairs while the other passengers duck for cover from flying hipbone shrapnel is anyone's guess.

In this particular case, I was thrown forward and my top pocket, containing my MP3 player, was suddenly jammed against the pole which is your sole recourse against taking the quick way down. This is where reason 3 comes in. If I had big soft man-breasts like any self-respecting (or should that be self-loathing) poker pro has, they would have cushioned the impact with little or no damage. In the event though, the player was savagely crushed between the metal pole and my rock-hard pecs. KT Tunstall didn't miss a beat, trooper that she is, but on further inspection the case is cracked to buggery. Oh well, it still works !

Stranger Than Fiction

A while back I idly wondered whether you could be banned from the Devil Fish's online poker room for offensive chat. But this is even better and, yes, it's real :

"Q: Does TonyGPoker have a code of conduct?

A: Yes. All players are expected to behave as good poker citizens and treat all others with respect.

Specifically:
Offensive, obscene, vulgar, racist, jingoist or hateful slurs will not be permitted on TonyGPoker.

Targeting other players to distress or embarrass them is harassment and will not be permitted."

Awesome. Thanks to Iggy for bringing that to my attention.

Shh ! You'll Blow The Whole Deal !

I read a very amusing piece by Giles Smith in the Times today [1]. Apparently ante-post favourite Phil Tufnell crashed out of Showbiz Darts at an early stage. Afterwards he pointed out that "Just because I can play cricket doesn't mean I can play darts" to which Smith, and excuse me if I mis-quote from memory, said it would be best not to tell anyone that in case it undermined the whole ethos of celebrity TV.

Showbiz Darts does sound quite amusing in that every game finishes on double one and the cameras frequently zoom in towards the targetted double only to pick up a "clunk" sound and the shoulder of the player in question as he or she bends over to retrieve the wayward arrow. It brings back happy memories of Bullseye when you would always hope that the female "non-darter" would make the final and adopt the classic square-on-tongue-sticking-out stance beloved by all devotees of the genre. Although it has to be said that when it comes to women playing darts nothing could ever match L!ve TV.

[1] I also recommend his book "Midnight In The Garden Of Evel Knievel" which frankly you should buy on the strength of the title alone. I did, and it was well worth it.

End Of An Era

This is no surprise : online qualifiers at the WSOP could become a thing of the past. We'll have to wait for the official word from Harrah's but it seems likely to me that they won't even accept online qualifiers from outside the US. I love the quote from the guy at the end when he says "If not, we just give the money to the player and they can pay." That guy can look forward to entering the twisted logic world of the satellite qualifier ...

When it comes to the event itself, it's a double edged sword. Chopping out 3/4 of the field cuts the variance of the Main Event down from "absolutely unmeasurably off the scale" to merely "stratospherically enormous". However there's no doubt that it will cut the EV down substantially as well. There will still be live satellite qualifiers but these will mostly be people who take the step of flying to Vegas without a seat. Perhaps some of the B+M casinos will fill the gap with land-based satellites to some extent, but it won't be the same. Perhaps single table satellites at the WSOP will not be affected too much, but again the completely clueless never-played-a-tournament-before players are going to be sat at home instead.

Perhaps the greatest downside of all is, as Jerrod Ankerman pointed out, that Jamie Gold is likely to hold the position of the biggest tournament winner in history for many, many years !

Making The Best Of It

How cool would it be to change your screen name to BillFrist ?

That would stick everyone on tilt.

While I'm here, another quick "did you know". Did you know that Harrah's Entertainment contributed $24,688 to Bill Frist's 1998 Senate Campaign and $19,250 to his 2000 Senate campaign ? Interesting that, isn't it.