Noble

I have been noble. With the Internet down, the office has been reorganised, and cleaned. All the computer and video stuff was separated, cleaned down, reconstructed, and put together in a more efficient fashion; the office, well, one half of it at least, now looks much tidier.

A downside to this, at least temporarily, is that a bookshelf and many books inhabit the landing, in need of moving elsewhere. That can wait for my reorganisation of my books and videos and DVDs.

+++++

With no Internet at home, I am unable to access most poker blog sites. Although I can see the top copy of Terrence Chan's blog at work, I can't read the various comments (blocked by my employers). Which is a pity, because the bust-up over a charity tournament at the Playboy Mansion looks like being the poker gossip story of the year so far.

I've only read Terrence's side of the story, but what seems clear is that the standard doom of charity poker tournaments has struck again -- this basically being that serious poker players don't mind giving to charity, but they still want to play proper poker. As Terrence said, he had no objection to fast blind levels, because he thinks his jam-or-fold game is better than most players', but he did object to other matters.

The situation at the end, where it was announced that the prizes would be allocated by chip count after four more hands, where Shannon Elizabeth mouthed to Steve Danneman "just fold everything", where Steve (drunk as a skunk, according to Terrence) was then advised by Annie Duke (who was helping him see his cards) to fold every hand, and which meant that Terrence had no chance of winning, all adds up to something that makes the charity status of the tournament irrelevant. Some decent prizes were at stake.

The follow-through, with Terrence mentioning this in his blog and then getting a "fiery" phone call from what sounds like the west-coast bitch-with-balls (this, btw, is not necessarily an insult in Hollyweirdland) including the line "remember, you're Terrence Chan, not Johnny Chan", make for a great story.

Moral. Never play in "charity" tournaments. Just give the money to charity.

+++++

I noticed that, after a couple of decades of decline, the number of betting shops is on the rise again. Some people might think this curious, what with the dying-off of the older type of horse and greyhound punter, the growth of Betfair for the serious gambler, and the alternative entertainments available.

The answer is just one thing - the slot machines and the virtual roulette. These are the money spinners. All the cafe crap, the horses, the grehounds, are window-dressing.

+++++

I have just spotted that the CEO of the Qatar Financial Center Authority is one Stuart Pearce.



+++++++