I've been back a few weeks now from the last poker trip, this time to Malta. At the risk of jinxing myself, I've had pretty amazing run-good the last few months on all these flights back and forth to Europe, and the Malta trip took that to the extreme.
Despite getting into Heathrow with exactly 17 minutes to get off the plane, through security, and make it to my connecting flight to Malta, I somehow made that flight, and then got off of Malta and back out of Heathrow in the nick of time at the end of the trip before winter snowstorm mayhem struck. I actually got home to Texas 12-24 hours before various friends made it from Malta to Berlin and Stockholm, with all of us leaving Malta at roughly the same time, so yeah, thumbs up to running good with flights.
Malta was pretty amazing. Well, amazing may be a strong word, but very comfortable and fun, and the first place I've run across on this recent European trips where I could really see myself living there. Which is kind of good timing, as we're seriously looking to make the move over to Europe very soon, likely next spring.
It's a mix of being practical (nearly all my work is in Europe at the moment, except for the WSOP) and just needing a change of scenery in general. Plus the fact that Sarah Palin has not, in fact, been relegated to book tour appearances in Gary, Indiana and very well might be the next President of the United States of America.
But mostly because of work, more than anything. 2011 looks even busier than 2010 as far as work for bwin and I've managed to pick up some other clients here and there, to the point where I'm once again bemoaning the lack of enough hours in the day, even after ditching the day job and the 2 hour commute and the endless hours filling out TPS reports and sitting in meetings about how it's not enough to be the BEST, but time to strive for GREAT.
Stockholm would make more sense but snowy winters and the general cost of living makes it a little meh, and Malta is surprisingly cheap as far as food, rent, etc. I can't see us living in Malta for the long haul, but it's the best jumping off point I've found so far, plus it wouldn't be a bad place to kick around for awhile as far as connections with the online gaming world as well.
It's been nice to take it a bit easy the last few weeks, as October and November were crazy work-wise. We're still trying to navigate the minefield that is Christmas as far as family expectations that we'll drop everything and travel many hours to sit around and drink too much and try not to talk about all the things that set everyone off, but there's probably a 25% chance that the wife and I may just sit home this year, which would be just fine with me.
I'll be off to the Aussie Millions for the first time in January, which I'm pretty damn excited about. But for now it's definitely nice to get in plenty of couch time on Sundays and relax a little.
Tuesday, December 14, 2010
Friday, November 12, 2010
Luxembourg is Nice; France, Meh
All the globetrotting of late (or, you know, flying back and forth across the Atlantic) makes life a big strange. I got back from Luxembourg/France on November 7th, with a few weeks home before heading off for GSOP Live Malta on the 21st.
Luxembourg was really, really nice, enough so that the hour or so long bus ride to Amneville for the WPT event was tolerable. Amneville was a pretty bizarr-o setting for a poker tournament, but it went off well enough, except for a colossal cock-up during hand-for-hand play at the bubble.
Or, more accurately, because there was no hand-for-hand play. Not a single, solitary hand. The tournament staff were pretty laissez-fair about updating the clock to reflect players busting, and as far as anyone can tell, they had no clue as to what the real number of players left were. Just as they were starting to remember that they might need to pause things and do it hand-for-hand, boom, bubble was burst and everyone left was cheering.
It's one of those weird instances where the fact I work for bwin and mainly focus on their players actually made it more interesting, as one of our players was knocked out in either 55th or 56th (with 54 spots paying). Pretty rotten situation for him, as he was 63 or 64 years old and tried very hard to tightbox his way into a cash, as apparently he's having money troubles so even a min cash for 7,000 euros was a pretty huge deal.
He'd have been safe to fold to the money but lost AK versus AJ right before things got tense and was down to just three or four big blinds. Thinking there were 57 players left (which is what the clock showed), he shoved KQ fom mid-position and got called by K 10. 10 on the river sent him packing, but that's when it suddenly became apparent that there were actually 55 players left, not 57.
Sounds trivial but a couple of players made the money with just one or two big blinds, so he actually could very likely have folded to the money (and more importantly, claimed he would have folded his KQ and played his hand differently if he'd known the real situation).
Apparently the other guy that went out at the same time was in a similar spot, but despite various official complaints the tournament director refused to do anything to
make it right and claimed he'd run his tournament perfectly, choosing instead to quasi-blame the media as his defense for no hand-for-hand play was that they were too busy trying to clear all us unruly media out of the room first.
Which I guess is standard, all the way around, for a poker tournament in France. Viva la France.
At about the same time that was going on the news came out of one of the Partouche final table members getting disqualified for cheating with his fat "blogger" conspirator. I know, I know, it's all still allegations, but if you've seen the videos making the rounds it's like 99.9% certain shenanigans were going on, along with all the other circumstantial evidence.
I guess I'm not quite as alarmed as other folks, though, as far as repercussions for blogger types. I think in the short run there might be a little more inconvenience and scrutiny paid to those requesting media credentials, but in the end I just can't see it as being that big a game-changer.
It's not like bloggers and media in general get preferential treatment to begin with at most live poker tournament events, so I can't see access changing that much. Organizers still want coverage of their events, so I'd be pretty surprised if media are outright banned from the tournament floor. Players will be more likely to give media the stink eye when trying to do their jobs, but that's already the case 25% of the time, so nothing too new there.
There's a good argument to be made, too, that if you properly protect your cards it's a non-issue to begin with, as it's not like fat "blogger" was smuggling in an x-ray camera that could see through cards. Sure, players shouldn't have to worry about media standing behind the trying to get a peek at their cards, but again, protect your cards and even that's a non-issue.
But then again, who knows. Like any profession, it's kind of a shame to see attention really only paid to poker bloggers/media when it's negative stuff like cheating allegations (or more trivial complaints about the lack of updated chip counts for someone's uncle Mortie).
When you do your job well, it's like you're never there, as far as unobtrusively getting hand details, chip counts, and photos without interfering in play. But let one fat "blogger" allegedly cheat with a sketchy player who's already been banned from other casinos from cheating, and lo and behold, suddenly a case must be made as to why poker media is even allowed on the tournament floor.
Luxembourg was really, really nice, enough so that the hour or so long bus ride to Amneville for the WPT event was tolerable. Amneville was a pretty bizarr-o setting for a poker tournament, but it went off well enough, except for a colossal cock-up during hand-for-hand play at the bubble.
Or, more accurately, because there was no hand-for-hand play. Not a single, solitary hand. The tournament staff were pretty laissez-fair about updating the clock to reflect players busting, and as far as anyone can tell, they had no clue as to what the real number of players left were. Just as they were starting to remember that they might need to pause things and do it hand-for-hand, boom, bubble was burst and everyone left was cheering.
It's one of those weird instances where the fact I work for bwin and mainly focus on their players actually made it more interesting, as one of our players was knocked out in either 55th or 56th (with 54 spots paying). Pretty rotten situation for him, as he was 63 or 64 years old and tried very hard to tightbox his way into a cash, as apparently he's having money troubles so even a min cash for 7,000 euros was a pretty huge deal.
He'd have been safe to fold to the money but lost AK versus AJ right before things got tense and was down to just three or four big blinds. Thinking there were 57 players left (which is what the clock showed), he shoved KQ fom mid-position and got called by K 10. 10 on the river sent him packing, but that's when it suddenly became apparent that there were actually 55 players left, not 57.
Sounds trivial but a couple of players made the money with just one or two big blinds, so he actually could very likely have folded to the money (and more importantly, claimed he would have folded his KQ and played his hand differently if he'd known the real situation).
Apparently the other guy that went out at the same time was in a similar spot, but despite various official complaints the tournament director refused to do anything to
make it right and claimed he'd run his tournament perfectly, choosing instead to quasi-blame the media as his defense for no hand-for-hand play was that they were too busy trying to clear all us unruly media out of the room first.
Which I guess is standard, all the way around, for a poker tournament in France. Viva la France.
At about the same time that was going on the news came out of one of the Partouche final table members getting disqualified for cheating with his fat "blogger" conspirator. I know, I know, it's all still allegations, but if you've seen the videos making the rounds it's like 99.9% certain shenanigans were going on, along with all the other circumstantial evidence.
I guess I'm not quite as alarmed as other folks, though, as far as repercussions for blogger types. I think in the short run there might be a little more inconvenience and scrutiny paid to those requesting media credentials, but in the end I just can't see it as being that big a game-changer.
It's not like bloggers and media in general get preferential treatment to begin with at most live poker tournament events, so I can't see access changing that much. Organizers still want coverage of their events, so I'd be pretty surprised if media are outright banned from the tournament floor. Players will be more likely to give media the stink eye when trying to do their jobs, but that's already the case 25% of the time, so nothing too new there.
There's a good argument to be made, too, that if you properly protect your cards it's a non-issue to begin with, as it's not like fat "blogger" was smuggling in an x-ray camera that could see through cards. Sure, players shouldn't have to worry about media standing behind the trying to get a peek at their cards, but again, protect your cards and even that's a non-issue.
But then again, who knows. Like any profession, it's kind of a shame to see attention really only paid to poker bloggers/media when it's negative stuff like cheating allegations (or more trivial complaints about the lack of updated chip counts for someone's uncle Mortie).
When you do your job well, it's like you're never there, as far as unobtrusively getting hand details, chip counts, and photos without interfering in play. But let one fat "blogger" allegedly cheat with a sketchy player who's already been banned from other casinos from cheating, and lo and behold, suddenly a case must be made as to why poker media is even allowed on the tournament floor.
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
What Day is it Again? Wednesday? Sunday? And What Month is It?
Adjusting to Life After Day Job has been a little strange. I don't at all miss the commute (which sucked up about two hours each day in total driving time) but it is odd to suddenly have no set schedule. If I'd won many millions of American dollars in Powerball, that'd be one thing, but I'm still on the clock as far as all my freelancing work basically boiling down to getting paid by the hour/word/however you want to slice it.
It's not so much that it's hard for me to turn off the Xbox and get to work, but moreso the opposite, as far as shutting off the part of my brain that keeps nudging me to get this or that done. When the freelancing was all extra work on top of the day job, it was easier, as I'd bang away at it for a few hours after work, then power down the work side of my brain and play some Angry Birds, watch TV, etc. But at the moment it's surprisingly difficult to shut off that small anxious part of me that resents having to "waste" time by going grocery shopping or yard work or whatever, as at any point in time I could, in theory, be making money.
As far as more specifics of Life During Day Job, that's weird too, as I expected to triumphantly post that I'd left and spend much time reveling in how terrible the place was, how happy I was to be free of the shackles, yada yada yada. Except I don't really feel that way. If anything I almost feel somehow disappointed, as far as letting the Evil Day Job win in some fashion.
I originally started working at Hoover's Inc. in 2000, which at the time was a smallish company that had recently gone public, so they had some cash but I started at pretty much the same time as when the dot com implosion really started revving up, so I missed the truly fun times. It still was a cool place to work, with kegs of beer on Fridays, a casual work environment, and a place that actually hired real writers and editors and, you know, did things and valued the work of people who wrote stuff and tried out new things as far as content, since content was the main thing that paid the bills for the company.
Things got a little less cool when we got mercenary about being profitable, but it was still a pretty decent place to work. Plus we actually started making money around 2002-2003, so we had a pretty good thing going. And then Dun & Bradstreet (D&B) bought us.
It'd be fun to bash D&B and, sweet Jebus, there's plenty to bash, but at a certain point there's just no point in it. Imagine a company with a monopoly on a fairly profitable business niche that produces billions in revenue each and every year, and a tidy net profit in the hundreds of millions. A business that, no matter how badly it is mismanaged, will still be profitable. And one that's just discovering e-mail and the Internet and is absolutely in love with words like "leveraging" and "winning" and "platforming".
Our little company fought the good fight for awhile but eventually the Borg assimilated us, and we went from a company that rolled out new products on a weekly/monthly basis to one that it would literally take years for even the simplest of ideas to get approved and implemented. Which meant that all the smart people left to go work somewhere where things actually happened, so the workplace became quickly populated with the walking dead, who were just killing time until they got promoted or retired.
But not really a unique story, as plenty of people have been through similar situations. And in the end it was my own damn fault for doing the Zombie Shuffle for so long myself, shrugging off .5-1% raises every year and the fact that my job had devolved into data entry and mashing a few different buttons in a slightly different order each day.
I guess it's that last bit that leaves me less than thrilled about what I'd imagined in the past would be a orgy of D&B bashing. It's fun to gripe about jobs at times but not so much when millions of people are unemployed, and especially not so much when you have options to do something else, even if it's a bit risky and uncertain. I really can't blame anyone other than myself for the years of zombitude I put in there, when the writing was plainly on the wall, so it's hard to revel too much when there's more regret there than anything for all that wasted time.
It's not so much that it's hard for me to turn off the Xbox and get to work, but moreso the opposite, as far as shutting off the part of my brain that keeps nudging me to get this or that done. When the freelancing was all extra work on top of the day job, it was easier, as I'd bang away at it for a few hours after work, then power down the work side of my brain and play some Angry Birds, watch TV, etc. But at the moment it's surprisingly difficult to shut off that small anxious part of me that resents having to "waste" time by going grocery shopping or yard work or whatever, as at any point in time I could, in theory, be making money.
As far as more specifics of Life During Day Job, that's weird too, as I expected to triumphantly post that I'd left and spend much time reveling in how terrible the place was, how happy I was to be free of the shackles, yada yada yada. Except I don't really feel that way. If anything I almost feel somehow disappointed, as far as letting the Evil Day Job win in some fashion.
I originally started working at Hoover's Inc. in 2000, which at the time was a smallish company that had recently gone public, so they had some cash but I started at pretty much the same time as when the dot com implosion really started revving up, so I missed the truly fun times. It still was a cool place to work, with kegs of beer on Fridays, a casual work environment, and a place that actually hired real writers and editors and, you know, did things and valued the work of people who wrote stuff and tried out new things as far as content, since content was the main thing that paid the bills for the company.
Things got a little less cool when we got mercenary about being profitable, but it was still a pretty decent place to work. Plus we actually started making money around 2002-2003, so we had a pretty good thing going. And then Dun & Bradstreet (D&B) bought us.
It'd be fun to bash D&B and, sweet Jebus, there's plenty to bash, but at a certain point there's just no point in it. Imagine a company with a monopoly on a fairly profitable business niche that produces billions in revenue each and every year, and a tidy net profit in the hundreds of millions. A business that, no matter how badly it is mismanaged, will still be profitable. And one that's just discovering e-mail and the Internet and is absolutely in love with words like "leveraging" and "winning" and "platforming".
Our little company fought the good fight for awhile but eventually the Borg assimilated us, and we went from a company that rolled out new products on a weekly/monthly basis to one that it would literally take years for even the simplest of ideas to get approved and implemented. Which meant that all the smart people left to go work somewhere where things actually happened, so the workplace became quickly populated with the walking dead, who were just killing time until they got promoted or retired.
But not really a unique story, as plenty of people have been through similar situations. And in the end it was my own damn fault for doing the Zombie Shuffle for so long myself, shrugging off .5-1% raises every year and the fact that my job had devolved into data entry and mashing a few different buttons in a slightly different order each day.
I guess it's that last bit that leaves me less than thrilled about what I'd imagined in the past would be a orgy of D&B bashing. It's fun to gripe about jobs at times but not so much when millions of people are unemployed, and especially not so much when you have options to do something else, even if it's a bit risky and uncertain. I really can't blame anyone other than myself for the years of zombitude I put in there, when the writing was plainly on the wall, so it's hard to revel too much when there's more regret there than anything for all that wasted time.
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
Just Don't Look, Just Don't Look
I suppose Drizz gets a pass, but for the rest of the world that's not been a longtime dedicated Vikings fan, I have a simple proposal: let's all agree to simply stop paying attention to Brett Favre.
My theory is that he'll simply turn to old man dust and blow away. Poof. No more penis pics. No more annual waffling on retirement. Just simply gone. Like the advertising slogan monsters on the Simpsons Halloween special. Just don't look.
Not that game announcers have anything better to be doing, but how many more stupid in-game trivia teasers are we going to be subjected to? Favre just threw for over 40 miles worth of passing yardage? Okay... And the 40 mile mark is important why? Why didn't you celebrate when he cracked the 39 mile mark? I mean, come on, 39 MILES! That's a marathon and a half!
But, seriously, the one thing that gets me more excited than a Packers-Vikings matchup at Lambeau Field is the prospect that, one day in the not too distant future, I can watch ESPN again without being reminded every 15 minutes that Brett Favre might (or might not be) possibly doing something at that point in time. I have seen a Favre-less future and, lemme tell you, it's going to be awesome...
My theory is that he'll simply turn to old man dust and blow away. Poof. No more penis pics. No more annual waffling on retirement. Just simply gone. Like the advertising slogan monsters on the Simpsons Halloween special. Just don't look.
Not that game announcers have anything better to be doing, but how many more stupid in-game trivia teasers are we going to be subjected to? Favre just threw for over 40 miles worth of passing yardage? Okay... And the 40 mile mark is important why? Why didn't you celebrate when he cracked the 39 mile mark? I mean, come on, 39 MILES! That's a marathon and a half!
But, seriously, the one thing that gets me more excited than a Packers-Vikings matchup at Lambeau Field is the prospect that, one day in the not too distant future, I can watch ESPN again without being reminded every 15 minutes that Brett Favre might (or might not be) possibly doing something at that point in time. I have seen a Favre-less future and, lemme tell you, it's going to be awesome...
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