Michael Craig's Journal

I think the Full Tilt logo has been burned into my retinas. I’ve gone a little crazy playing the tournaments in the last week and I think I can see that shadow-logo they have on the (virtual) felt when I close my eyes.

On the positive side, I am developing an ability - or getting on the good side of the randomness of the cards - to accumulate chips in the beginning and middle stages. If they doled out the prize money in proportion to chips counts when there was, say, 20% of the field remaining, I’d be richer than Richard Brodie. I have a stunning record for making mistakes or losing when my opponents make them around the bubble.

If “skills development” and “moral victories” become currency, I’m getting somewhere between one and three new cars.

In between tournaments - actually, I’m playing the Full Tilt $50,000 Guarantee tourney right now - here is what I have noted and neglected over the last several days: 

1. This was another one of those weeks where every car I own had some trouble.

Two months ago, I had one of those and I wrote about it. The Mercedes, with 30,000 miles in 11 1/2 months (it has that FEW because I haven’t been in Vegas in a month), started, literally, whining. That took 2 1/2 days.

Jo Anne’s Murano needed one four new tires. That’s the thing about tire shops: if you think you need one tire, you are almost a sure thing to walk out with four. And if the tire has a leak, forget about getting it repaired. A tire can never be repaired by a store that SELLS tires.

The VW van didn’t actually have anything wrong with it. But my Mom and her husband Dave, staying at the condo for the winter, got stopped by a cop who told them the registration was expired and there was no record of insurance on the vehicle. I actually HAVE insurance on the van, so that was a matter of finding the piece of paper. I don’t know what happened that I didn’t get the registration renewed, but when I tried to do it online, I found out that I needed an emissions test.

I made Mom and Dave take car of the emissions and insurance - which were within a block of each other. All I had to do was pony up $550 for the right to drive the thing around town.

Two interesting (second-hand) observations: (a) Mom and Dave are professional clowns, a very cool business they started in their retirement. Mom has a lot more clowning experience, but Dave is relentless about getting business. He has these color business cards that he hands out EVERYPLACE. My Mom had to stop him from giving one to the cop. (b) The emissions testing center, I learned, has huge signs every place about how it is illegal to bribe the employees. But then they don’t take credit cards or checks, only cash. Talk about mixed signals.

2. Rag trade

The new issues of all the monthly poker mags are out. The December issue of BLUFF is one of my favorites. I wrote the cover profile of Chris Ferguson, focusing on the year we’ve spent together working on the Full Tilt book. It has some of my best writing. (By the way, for those of you who read it, the story about the spy from the rock band with the ponytail and handlebar mustache is TRUE. I’ll tell that guy’s story some time soon.)

For some reason, ALL IN, a magazine I like, edited by Eric Raskin, who I really like, has turned over - literally and figurately, as you have to flip the magazine over or be able to read upside-down - half the magazine to tournament blackjack.

I’d love to be proven wrong on this, because my friend Annie Duke is involved in some aspect of the tournament blackjack business, but I just don’t see it. Poker tournaments and poker magazines rose up to fill insane demand created by the twin engines of TV and the Internet. Did I miss that with blackjack?

I get to “go off” on POKER PRO and POKER LIFE in the next section.

3. Paging Pamela Anderson.

This is the time in the publication cycle where the poker magazines are getting to their fluff pieces about that up-and-coming (yet now somehow defunct) online poker site, Pamelapoker.com. I like both POKER PRO and POKER LIFE, so it’s not about that. And it’s not a competitive thing, because BLUFF could (and maybe did, for all I know) do the same screwy thing.

Talking something up just because there’s a celebrity or a potential advertiser involved, especially because there is some implied pressure not to piss all over them, is a mistake. Both mags wrote “promotional pieces” about Anderson’s site, and POKER LIFE actually put her on the cover. (POKER PRO, which also boasts the bewitching Katie Lindsay on its staff, obviously understands REAL beauty, as they have Shana Hiatt on their cover.)

Pamela Anderson comes off as vaguely deranged in both articles (In the POKER LIFE article, she has raccoon eyes):

“Doyle [Brunson] is teaching me [to play poker], so I’m learning no bad habits …. We’ve got to get together soon because I’ve been gone running around the whole world. I don’t know if I’ve got to go to Texas or if he’s going to come here to California. He was mad.” [POKER LIFE]

“[Doyle's] definitely on my top three hottest men alive list, Hef, Doyle, and Bob [Kid Rock].”

“I was asked to do online poker when it first came out. I thought then: ‘Why would I want to do a gambling site? I’m not a gambler. Why would I want to get involved?’ Now, having children and realizing how much goes on with computers and on the Internet, it seemed like a natural.” [POKER PRO]

Does that make any sense whatsoever? I’ll put twenty bucks in the Full Tilt account for the person who does the best job of parsing and explaining that for me. Post it as a comment to this jounal entry. If I get at least 5, I’ll choose the best one - decisions are subjective and final - and I’ll put $20 in your account. You must have a Full Tilt account to qualify. (Kids, no need to ask your parents’ advice. It can be our little secret.)

But it’s not all Pam’s fault. The mags are having trouble getting their stories straight. According to POKER PRO, Anderson made the cover of PLAYBOY 6 times. POKER LIFE said it was 11.

4. Taking a break from the online tournament “circuit”.

After going deep in last Sunday’s Full Tilt $350,000 Guarantee, the smart thing to do would be to take a break, not be so anxious to give all that money back. As usual, I am going to do the right thing, but for all the wrong reasons.

After neglecting my family all week (”But honey, the Midnight Madness tournament is about to start. $11 and I have a 1 on 1,200 chance of winning $2,200.” “I’ll pick you up at the dance studio during the next break, in just 47 minutes.”), I am taking Valerie, whose birthday is next week, to see HIGH SCHOOL MUSICAL: THE MUSICAL at the Glendale Arena tomorrow at 4 PM. If I beg off to play a tournament, Val is essentially lost forever to me, and Jo Anne shuts me off from sex until one of Bush’s daughters becomes President.

But I promise to keep contributing. It’ll just take that money a little longer to make it back into the poker economy.

This entry was posted on Saturday, December 2nd, 2006 at 7:48 pm and is filed under My favourites:.