Tony 'Tikay' Kendall
Sunday, 30 November 2014
Rankings, heroes, HUDs and gongs.
Gong!
Yes, amazingly, it’s that time again – the British Poker Awards, which the nice folks at Bluff Europe stage every year.
Poker Awards seem very “Marmite”, nobody sits on the shelf; folks either love them or loathe them.
I keep saying it though, and I won’t stop; poker needs a bit of self-promotion, and it does no harm to make a bit of a song & dance about those who excel.
It barely seems five minutes since I somehow binked my very own British Poker Awards gong. Proper proud I was, too, but the bookies go 5000/1 on a repeat, despite the fact I have two nominations this time around.
“Best Blogger” against the combined might of Padraig, Jake, Mr Squid and Dale Philip will only come my way if the votes are based on blog volume, not quality. It was a little ironic that I got a blogger nomination just a month after bemoaning the current scarcity of blogs. Was it something I wrote?
Even more eye-popping is “Poker Personality of the Year”, well I mean, me up against Barny, Queen Vicky, Squid, Rob Yong and Mr Money himself, Paul Newey, are you being serious? Eddie 'The Eagle' Edwards had more chance of an olympic gold medal, though he did eventually make a bit of a Splash.
Good job they don’t publish the number of votes cast is all I can say. I’ll settle for a top five place in both.
But all is not lost, because “Best UK Tournament” includes The Sky Poker UKPC Championships. Now that must have a chance, right? Two great poker festivals in 2014, including the first ever 6-Max jobbie, with both festivals televised on Sky Sports, helped to bring poker to a wider audience.
And that’s my baby, I was there as water-carrier, general dogsbody and “front of house” from start to finish. What's that? Basically, meet and greet, stand there and look pretty. Two out of three is OK, right?
On a slightly more serious note, I think all poker festivals should have a “host”, someone who actually takes a bit of time to welcome everyone and make the players feel as if they matter – because they do.
So, in a piece of shameless spam, please vote for The Sky Poker UKPC in Best UK Tournament. Not that I’m biased. I’d make it mandatory to vote, so get voting NOW before you forget at www.thebritishpokerawards.com.
While we are on the spam department, news reaches me that Bluff Europe and RankingHero have joined forces to produce a ranking system to calculate the
Bluff European Poker Rankings.
For those of us in this part of the world, The Hendon Mob used to be our destination when we wanted to see these things, but they morphed into GPI, which is really very good but a bit hard for us to get our tiny heads round.
Competition has to be good, so let’s hope the alliance between Bluff Europe & RankingHero catches the imagination.
Can I see your Licence please?As I write this, all the chitter chatter is about the new Gambling (Licensing & Advertising) Act.
It’s all quite ironic, really.
The proposed new legislation has been well-documented for a very long time now with every well-managed gaming organisation having long since ensured they get their licence and are fully Compliant.
Note, by the bye, capital “C” for “Compliant, a word we rarely see on poker forums, but a cornerstone of all reputable gaming sites. In a world where we all want to be different, gaming sites have to comply.
Is it a good thing to have better regulated gaming sites? Of course it is. We don’t need to name names, but there have been some murky outfits in the past, who have skidaddled with our hard earned. It is difficult enough to win at poker, so we need to be able to trust these guys who run the sites.
Relax, it’ll be fine, you’ll hardly notice the difference, but knowing your money is safe and our game is being properly regulated is priceless.
Up The MarinersDanny Rudd, a Grimsby Town fanatic (yes, there are a few), picked up a very handy $770,000 in the recent WCOOP.
Danny has been around forever, just getting it quietly; in fact he almost defines “GIQ”.
Look him up on Google, you’ll not find much. He rarely plays live, preferring to play online cash, but when he does venture out, he generally runs deep.
Be afraid if you run into him on the tables though, this man has game. You’ll not wish to meet a nicer, more decent, lad and if you think all internet poker players lack social skills, Danny is living proof that you are wrong.
Top, top bloke, him.
I wonder if he'll invest some of his winnings into Grimsby Town? Stranger things have happened. Watch out Tony Bloom, you might just have competition.
The HUD debateI rather enjoyed the very well-balanced
piece about HUD’s by Dara O’Kearney, in Bluff Europe's August issue.
I have to take him to task on one small matter, though, in that he suggests that a few networks tried banning HUD’s, “essentially as a gimmick”.
I’m not buying that Dara, sorry.
Several sites, especially those aimed more towards recreational players, or poker “enthusiasts” as I like to see them described, have tried this line and it is working. One such site has seen traffic rise 20% inside 12 months, very much against the trend. They canvass their player base regularly, and top of the “like” list is always “NO HUD”.
These enthusiasts are very, very important to the game. Banning HUDs won’t help them win, of course it won’t, but their poker pound will last longer. More importantly, they won’t feel disadvantaged.
Sorry to be picky, but that apart, it was a great piece & really thought provoking, Mr Okey Dokey.
9/10 will do, surely?
King For a DayWSOP 2015I’d announce the schedules on the 1st January, latest. Once the WSOP announce, the other ‘rooms soon follow. It’s a proper pain now knowing the dates until April, when we need to get out there by the end of May. Step aside Seth, Ty & Jack, I’m in charge now. Dates will be announced on New Year's Day, you hear me?
PLO & PLO8I hereby decree that everyone has a crack at these two lovely games, the popularity of which is suddenly increasing rapidly. We all like to get the aces, flop sets and boats galore; well in this game we do. Play a handful of PLO or PLO8 SNG’s & you’ll see more aces then in a month of NLHE. More cards, more fun, more options, more beasts, more suckouts. And we get all those lovely wraps, super wraps, scoopios, the whole works. Try it. A fun poker variant? Just a bit.