12
#493 – Say Nothing and Tell No One – (Secrets &) Plans
My apologies for the lapse in correspondence. Things are about to get very busy for me and this Blog, busier than you could ever imagine. First, the Blog is going through some operational changes. These are taking some time to iron out. Second, I am preparing to go to London on Friday, September 12. From there, I will be writing about Full Tilt’s Million Pound Challenge, the Million Dollar Cash Game, One-on-One with Patrik Antonius, and I’ll be playing in and writing about the Second World Series of Poker-Europe.
I also have a secret to share.
So my schedule for the next two weeks will look like this:
Friday 12 September & Saturday 13 September – Travel to London.
Sunday 14 September – I was supposed to arrive in London early Saturday afternoon, so I’d have a day and a half to decompress, acclimate, and play the Sunday tournaments. But Hurricane Ike shut down the Houston airport so I’m instead taking a red-eye through Newark. I won’t get to my room until sometime late, late, late Saturday, probably assuring I’ll be a wreck Sunday and beyond.
Monday 15 September & Tuesday 16 September – I’ll be covering Full Tilt’s Million Pound Challenge from The Hellenic Center in London. This is the culmination of a contest involving thousands of European Full Tilt players. The final 80 are meeting on Monday, playing down to the final 6. On Tuesday, they play down to a group that will play a final table with Full Tilt pros Phil Ivey, Chris Ferguson, and Roland de Wolfe. The surviving challengers will also receive coaching from Allen Cunningham and Andy Bloch. And I’ll be telling you all about it, live, in this space.
Wednesday 17 September & Thursday 18 September – I’ll be covering the Million Dollar Cash Game from London. I’m going to try to excerpt some of the best of last year’s game in whet your appetites. There was some great stuff and this year’s line-up, which I understand will include most of last year’s group, along with Mike Matusow, Tom Dwan, and possibly Phil Hellmuth and Doyle Brunson, will be stellar. Tony G was the big winner last year and he’s expected back, but the real superstar was … ME. I posted over 20 times during those two days and some of the stuff was awesome.
Starting Friday 19 September – Commence play of the World Series of Poker-Europe. I will be playing in the opening NLHE event and the HORSE. The only event I’m sure I’ll be skipping will be the PLO, because I hesitate to spend $200 to play Full Tilt’s Saturday PLO, which means I have no business playing for 50 times that amount just because the currency has some lady’s picture on it.
Thursday 25 September – I’ll be covering the contest finale of One-on-One with Patrik Antonius.
I’ll be giving you more nformation on these events prior to my coverage and, where appropriate, my participation.
In addition to preparing for my London trip and the responsibilities therein, a few other items have been occupying my time and energy.
The first is the Final Table of the World Series of Poker Main Event. Although the final nine don’t convene until early November, Full Tilt has asked me to anchor its Final Table coverage. Full Tilt has three players among the final nine: Scott Montgomery, Craig Marquis, and Kelly Kim. As described previously in this Blog, I met with the three last month. I’ve been getting those interviews transcribed and am preparing further posts about the three gentlemen and their final table chances.
OK, I’ll assume you are reading this alone.
No one from Full Tilt reads this Blog and on the occasions when they do – when I send them a link and ask them to read it – they don’t go beyond the opening paragraphs.
I’ll be making a major announcement – for me and, I hope, for Full Tilt – in this space by next Monday. Only Uncle Tilty and maybe one other person at Full Tilt knows anything about this. And they don’t know the whole story, not to mention they’d kill me if I spilled the beans too soon.
It concerns, at a minimum, my fuure at Full Tilt. As you know, I’ve been uncertain about my future these last several months. I’ve wanted to move on from the Blog but it’s hard. I like having the platform. I like the readers with whom I occasionally interact. I like the people associated with the site. And, finally, I like the money.
But it’s time for me to do something different. My problem, these last few years, has been that “something different” keeps getting pushed away. First it was a second poker book. Then it was family commitments. Then my own poker-playing success. And maybe personal laziness at some juncture (or junctures). Recently, if it hasn’t been winning enough money playing poker to keep the wolf at bay, it’s been Full Tilt offering to pay my (admittedly high) rate to write something.
Resolution is at hand. For reasons that will become obvious after I make the announcement, I cannot disclose my plans until I am outside the jurisdiction of the United States. But don’t worry – with the status of this business I’m in, taking care to keep one’s self legally protected (or at least EXTRA-legally protected) is routine. Still, not even my wife Jo Anne knows exactly what I have planned.
I’ll be outside U.S. territorial jurisdiction sometime Saturday morning. All I can tell you until then is that the online poker business is … fascinating. A huge economy has sprung up out of nowhere. And an economy doesn’t exist in a vacuum. The U.S. government ought to recognize the legality of this economy, provide oversight and regulation, and pick up billion in tax dollars. But instead, a few zealots have put the Feds on the dark path of prohibition or vagueness or ignorance or unrealistic condemnation. That’s not good for the government, or it’s citizens, and it’s sure not good for the poker economy.
But if our – your - government refuses to make things right, I can only for so long ignore the opportunities created by the legal uncertainties and lack of regulation. I have developed, though admittedly without a lot of detail, the plan for the next phase of my life.
I will announce it as soon as I can after arriving in London. Expect things to be a lot different from me and this Blog following World Series of Poker-Europe. But no matter what, I’ll be covering those three Full Tilt events in London, plus playing in and writing about WSOP-E.
After that …?
