28
#063 – Paradox Lost
I’m taking a very short break from my proofreading. I have to send the completely proofread galley pages of The Full Tilt Poker Strategy Guide – Tournament Edition to Warner Books in 15 1/2 hours. I have completed only 20% of the job in the nearly two weeks since I received them. Good thing for me that the executive turmoil within the publishing industry has made it extremely unlikely that anybody in a position of responsibility is reading this blog.
Several short matters of note, and I hope it doesn’t sound like I’m tooting my own horn, or Full Tilt’s. I’m just calling them as I see them:
1. I’ve been trying out MyWebATM and ePassporte and they seem just like NETeller. I haven’t compared fees, either with each other or with NETeller’s structure, but I made small deposits with both, withdrew money with both, and got it from my ATM right away with MyWebATM. (I haven’t tried that yet with ePassporte but will tomorrow. I’m pretty certain it will be simple; if you don’t hear from me, assume that it was.)
I was definitely in that crowd that said, “NeTeller being out of business could be crippling.” I’m pleased that I was wrong. I had a comfort level with NETeller because I had dealt with them for awhile – lotta good that’s doing me with over five grand frozen until Doyle Brunson gets elected President – but once you get another service set up, it’s exactly the same.
2. The rest of the Full Tilt universe – which, like our own, is undeniably expanding – agrees. There was definitely a dip in number of players online and in the evening tournaments I regularly played. But it had stabilized and, now that the new payment processors have been in place a little while, site and tournament participation are increasing. I’m seeing over 42,000 players as the number during peak weeknight hours, more than before the NETeller problems. I’m sure there’s some influx of Doyle’s Room players, too, but it appears that if you want to play poker, you can get money to and from Full Tilt.
When I was at the Wynn Classic playing a tournament, I made some joke about playing poker online. (Something about the difficulty I’m having in live events maintaining a “poker face” when I’m usually playing in a game where pants are optional.) One guy said, “I just assumed that online poker died after that law got passed.” The guy obviously had little experience online and wasn’t keeping himself informed. In fact, that statement, made as an assumption, shows he knows next to nothing about gamblers and gambling behavior. (Though his “tell” of muttering under his breath when he missed the flop also suggested a rudimentary knowledge, at best, of the finer points of wagering.)
3. The big Sunday Guarantee tournament, which had gone from $250,000 to $400,000 and looked in danger of sliding backwards, is once again set at $400,000 and that guarantee was easily met last Sunday. The Mulligan, which had dropped its guarantee from $75,000 to $50,000, is back to $75,000. I’m playing fewer weeknight tournaments - though I will catch the $30,000 Guarantee 6-handed tourney whenever possible (see below) – but I just noticed that the early AM (east coast; midnight for me) $7,000 Guarantee has become a $13,000 Guarantee. Superb! (Disco Stu the tournament director told me that 18 guarantees went up.)
4. One of the main reasons I am floundering at proofreading is because I can’t get myself eliminated quickly enough in poker tournaments to get back to work. In two of the Second Chance tournaments at the Wynn Classic last weekend, I made the final table, and I won one of them. I drove home all day to make the $400,000 Guarantee, missed the first 45 minutes (though I signed up before I left Vegas), and was down under 2,000 chips at the first break. But I came back to finish 42nd. On Monday night, after blowing a grand in the $1K tourney, I moped around the $30,000 Guarantee and finished 3rd. (I’ve played that tournament 28 times in the last 9 weeks. It pays 36 spots and I have finished in the money 4 times – eighth, fourth, third, and first. (But please note: I got lucky SEVERAL times to make the final table on Monday night.)
5. On Wednesday night, please stop by to say hello and make yourself heard when I play the $30,000 Guarantee 6-handed tourney. Ryan, a reporter for Casino City Times, is writing a story about me and will be watching. If you can fake the impression that I’m (a) a good player, (b) really popular, and/or (c) owner of the world’s eighth largest diamond, I’d appreciate it. Heck, I even hope some of my enemies come in to rag on me.
6. I will be in Vegas this weekend at the Heads-Up Championship, reporting on the event from my unique perspective. (And by “unique perspective”, that means I have no idea what I’m supposed to do or going to do, but that I won’t have this blog long if I can’t come up with something, and Pokerwire.com is going to be there doing their usual excellent job reporting the tournament action, so I need to come up with something. I was thinking, because of a delay in getting media credentials, of getting one of the pros to invite me as their date, and taking it from there.)
7. I still owe you more Andy Beal/Ted Forrest, my night with several pros at a very neat corporate event in Scottsdale a couple Saturdays ago, and some interesting stuff going on at the Wynn Classic.
Once I get this proofreading done, it’ll be smooth sailing, right?
If you need to reach me, try suicideking@fulltiltpoker.com.
