Comment(s)
Comments
Post your comment below
Let’s spread some love
by Bond18 on 10/07/08
Today seems like an odd choice for which to write a positive minded blog entry. I had a truly awful day.I woke up at 6am to catch an 8:15am flight. I normally wake up at 9am. There was bad traffic on the way to the airport and I was afraid we’d be late and miss the flight, though I was pretty sure we’d be okay. When we arrived they informed us that the flight was two hours delayed.
As always when I’ve under slept I felt horribly sick to my stomach and couldn’t eat very well in the morning. Our flight didn’t actually leave until 11:15am and as a result of Celina and me checking in separately online they had seated us apart. I asked the guy next to me if he wouldn’t mind swapping his aisle seat for Celina’s window and he declined on account of wanting to stay in the aisle seat. I went over and asked the lady next to Celina to move and after some consideration she agreed. I thanked her excessively.
The flight on United Arab Emirates was pleasant enough for the first 80% or so. Then they took away my head phones mid movie as we began our descent, forcing me to watch the rest of ‘Recount’ in silence, unable to understand why everyone in the movie hated Katherine Harris so much.
Then the plane experienced considerable turbulence, which caused me a rare bout of air sickness. I turned ghastly pale and my body felt like I was on fire. I unbuttoned my shirt down to a level that’d make Antonio Banderas think I was overdoing it then started sweating profusely as I dry heaved into the air sickness bag. I never actually vomited, though I doubt anyone else on the plane knew that from the sounds I was making.
Our descent turned out to be a rouse, as about 50 meters from the ground we suddenly pulled up and rapidly gained altitude. The captain came on the loud speaker and informed us that given the extremely wet and windy weather conditions it was too dangerous to land the plane. We’d have to hover over the airport and try again in about 10 minutes, and if we couldn’t land in the next 30-40 we’d have to reroute to Christchurch. On the second attempt the pilot managed to give us a surprisingly smooth landing.
I exited the plane as quickly as possible and after we went through customs made our way to the taxi line. We got a taxi immediately but the drive into town ended up taking 90 minutes as a result of a crash on the freeway. The ride is supposed to take 25.
When we arrived at the hotel Celina realized she’d forgot her make up at home. That meant we needed to go walk about in the rain for about 45 minutes searching for a place that had the appropriate accessories, which we never found.
I finally arrived in the poker room around 8pm, half an hour late to get into the media/celebrity event which Lee Nelson hosted. So yes, it has been a rough day. But now that it’s all done and over, I’m in the mood to spread some love around the poker world. Especially since my last entry has people thinking I’m a massive hater.
It’s worth noting though, that my frequent shots at Hellmuth are more than a simple professional envy. Sure, there’s that. Sure I’m jealous that a guy who behaves like an idiot and plays with hilariously awful leaks has made more money from this game than I ever will. Sure it’s appalling to watch him receive special treatment and have penalties taken away just because ESPN is worried about ratings. Sure he makes himself a massive target for criticism with his constant declarations about being the best in the world and in the history of the game when he’s too retarded to figure out how to play QQ to an open raise. But what really makes Hellmuth the epicentre of my scorn is his attitude and treatment of people.
There’s a popular Hellmuth story that everyone knows at Crown Casino in Melbourne. Back in the earlier days of the Aussie Millions (I believe it was 2004, though I could be wrong about the year and it’s not terribly relevant) Phil came down to play in the tournament. They had a players party one night and a popular poker room floor man by the name of Franky, who’s just about the nicest guy you’ll ever meet, was given the task of escorting Phil up to the party since he didn’t know his way. On the way up the escalator Franky turned to Phil and said
“Man it must be so exciting to travel around the world and play so much poker in Vegas.”
Phil glanced down at Frank and retorted sternly
“Franky, don’t talk to me, just take me to the party” then never said another word. And just in case you think I got an exaggerated version, it was Franky who told it to me.
But enough of the negative vibes, let’s get some love flowing. I’ve already written one entry a while ago about those I know in the poker world and why they are awesome, which you can find here: http://tworags.com/blog/bond18/post/2279/the_people_i_know_
Now let’s talk about some people I’ve gotten to know better recently and why they are so fucking cool.
Lee Nelson: I could write pages about why Lee Nelson kicks ass, so I’ll try and sum things up neatly here. First of all, he’s a flat out excellent tournament player, with the results to prove it (not that results prove anything!) He’s a guy in his mid 60’s who while retired and looking for a hobby picked up poker and made up his mind to get as good at it as possible. He’s written three books on poker, one of which I consider to be one of the best pieces of poker literature in the game, ‘Kill Everyone’. He has all the people reading and ‘feel’ skills of a great live player, but thinks about the game much closer to an online player. He’s the only predominately live playing poker player I’ve ever seen who seems more at home discussing strategy with online kids than with other live players, yet has a sense of humour and enthusiasm few of them can match. His game is grounded in math, but knows when to break it. It’s no secret that Lee has done a lot for me, including getting me involved in these seminars, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to write him a suck up paragraph just to return the favour.
Grant Levy: For those who don’t know Grant, he’s the guy who won the APPT Grand Final in Sydney last year, making him the first Australian to win a million dollars (AUD) on Australian soil. It immediately launched him into poker stardom in the region and landed him an instant major sponsorship deal with Stars. On top of this, Grant has had some massive results online, both previous to and after his win. All that said, Grant is one of those guys whose ego hasn’t changed in the slightest since his string of success, and although he aspires to be a great poker player, he talks and acts like a guy who knows he’s not the perfect player. He knows where he needs to improve and shows the drive to keep increasing his knowledge, and my guess is that time will prove Grant to be no one hit wonder.
Shane ‘Shaniac’ Schleger: Shane is poker’s Elliot Ness (go ahead, google him), a guy with the utmost respect for the game and a genuine passion for protecting its ethics. He’s an outspoken guy on the forums who I learn something from just about every time he stops in to make a post. He’s perhaps poker’s best blogger (it’s a coin toss between him and Dr. Pauly in my opinion) when he’s motivated enough to update the damn thing, and he also crushes both live and online poker. Sure, he told JJprodigy to go kill himself, but who hasn’t thrown around a “Hey, why don’t you go kill yourself” in their day? At least on the internet anyway. I keep those comments for people in positions of authority myself, but were I to tell one and only one notorious online cheat that he ought to end his own life it’d be JJ too, so who am I to judge? Oh shit, there’s still Teltscher. I guess that’s two coin tosses this paragraph.
Dani ‘Ansky’ Stern: I mean, he’s just the sickest of the sick. I’ve learned as much from Ansky’s strategy posts as I have from just about anyone’s. He plays the biggest cash games and crushes. He’s the guy every single 2+2’er would swap with in the 10k live tournament. He makes awesome Pokersavvy videos. He plays 500/1000 heads up against Durrrr (baaaaaaaaaaaaaaalla!) What’s not to like?
Jeffrey Haas: I kind of hope Jeffrey never reads this because he’s a guy whose in a position which makes it inevitable that people will constantly suck up to him and I don’t want him to think I’m doing that. Jeffrey is cool, both for what he does and just as a person. And what exactly is it this guy 95% of you have never heard of did that’s so cool? HE BROUGHT POKER TO FUCKING ASIA. He’s the president of the APPT and although there’s a lot of credit to be given for its success to a number of people I’ve gotten to know recently, Jeffrey is at the top of the pyramid and the guy with final say. If there comes a time five years from now when players from all over Asia are making the online games as soft as ever this is the guy you thank. And five years after that when all the Asian players have taken over poker this is the guy you burn at the stake. The over/under on the total amount of hours of sleep Jeffrey gets in a week is 15.
Gazillion: For those of you who don’t know him, Gazillion was the 2+2 poster who brought my ‘TJ Cookier and the UB Scandal’ comic strip to life with his incredible photoshopping skills. His real name is Mike, though I haven’t a clue about his last name. We’ve never met but spoken on AIM a ton of times. Gazillion manages to be on of the extremely few regular posters in ‘News, Views, and Gossip’ who doesn’t just spew retardation onto the forums. A quick glance at his body of work, found here: http://www.pokerroad.com/forums/showthread.php?t=8 and you’ll know why he was the best man for my job. He also handles my constant insults about his being English with all class. Now if only that pommie, tea sucking, red coat wearing, probably bad teeth having, inexplicably soccer enjoying, drunken British bastard would finish my fucking comic.
Celina Lin: Yea, she’s my girlfriend, so it’s obvious I love her for reasons outside of poker. But this is a poker blog, so let’s keep it on topic. A bit under a year ago Celina cashed in the APPT Macau tournament and when the Pokerstars people found out she was trilingual and born in China they decided to live up to their name sake and make themselves a poker star. Since then Celina has been on the cover of poker magazines, featured in non poker literature, done press conferences, and dealt with people who consider themselves ‘fans’ of hers. What impresses me is that throughout it all Celina has never lost sight of reality. She doesn’t consider herself a big deal even though others treat her as such, and her behaviour hasn’t changed in the slightest. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a little worried at the start that all the attention and praise might change my girlfriend, but a year into it I now know that’s just not how she is. She’s not just sitting back and acting like she’s hot shit either, she knows she still has a ton to learn and every time she busts from a tournament on a questionable hand comes to me and says “Tony, will you help me get better at poker?” If only I knew how to stop two outers.
Okay, that’s enough pleasantries for one evening. It’s quite late and I’ve had a long day. For those wondering about the seminar, it’s $750 New Zealand (ball park $500 USD) for one day. We include a workbook that’s nearly 200 pages long for you to take home that has content from every instructor. At the end we run a tournament where we interact with the players and give them feedback about how they play. The winner of the tournament gets a seat into the APPT New Zealand main event. It lasts around eight hours long I believe. Sorry I don’t have more thorough information, but this is my first go at this.
