Allow me to add some more colour to Tom’s introductions. Kudos to Tom for the subtlest of needles, using a picture of me quite literally making my exit from said final table.
Tom acknowledges that he doesn’t know one of the party - Jon - but I can vouch for Jon being a solid addition to the group. I met him a couple of years ago when Dan, Jon, and I went to the Irish Poker Open: more specifically, I was introduced to him whilst he was heads-up in a PLO side event shortly before he took it down. Some man.
The next day we found a pool table in the hotel and played a few frames. I’ve always fancied myself as +EV in any game of pool against a random opponent, so when a random Irish fella strolled by looking pretty scruffy and unassuming and asked if he could play the winner of our game in progress, I sensed a good spot.
“Will we have a few quid on it?” I asked, already banking the Sklansky pool bucks.
“Sure,” the man said. “Whatever you want.”
The nonchalance of his response ought to have triggered at least a feint warning inside me, but I was rendered myopic by idiotic bravado, preoccupied, deciding how to size this value-bet.
“Twenty Euro?”
The guy basically just shrugged his acceptance. It was up to me to break, which I did, and even when the villain began to prowl the table and chalk his cue and eye the split of the balls, any concern was still pending penetration of my thick skull. Jon and Dan watched on, like tourists in the Kruger who can foresee the grim fate of an antelope a few steps before the ill-fated beast itself.
Five shots and five clunks of potted balls later, each subsequent clunk more resounding and damning than the last, I started to realise that I had been expertly hustled by this shrewd character. I was given a chance, however: a late visit to the table to try to rectify my regrettable situation. Alas, rattled, I missed a sitter, and the villain finished me off with the very same languid ease that he demonstrated ten minutes earlier when he identified me as a mark at cuesports.
Jon is, I’m told, something of a shark on the pool table himself, who plays to a pretty high standard in his hometown. I have no doubt that his witnessing of my Dublin Drubbing described above is the backdrop for a message I received a few weeks ago.
You simply have to respect the hustle of a man who will, with such passive-aggressive ruthlessness, warm a target up to the idea of losing their money to him. Jon Boy, I look forward to a few games of pool and may the best man win!
I can probably add a bit of colour about your co-pilot, too. Tom and I disagree on a lot of things, and one of these things is, evidently, the important questions to mull over in the build-up to a Vegas trip.
Most of my thoughts have been preoccupied with things like restaurant scheduling and dice strategy: CUT will be a staple, but wouldn’t it be nice to try somewhere like SW, too? Where will we go for Sunday brunch in the absence of the Country Club’s jazz buffet? Where will the hottest dice be found, and should I trial different dice-throwing techniques in a bid to identify the superstitious optimum? Between these thoughts there’s room for the occasional pondering of which massage treatment to arrange at the spa and which morning to arrange it for, or just a general appreciation of how neatly the Champions League football matches will slot into our schedule whilst we’re in town.
For Tom, however…
What a savage nit.
For the record, any requests submitted to me to chop blinds will be returned with a spite-raise of anywhere between 5bb and the absolute lot, depending on the number of Blue Moons consumed prior. Tourists flying 10 hours to chop blinds ought to result in an ESTA blacklist for future trips, in my humble opinion.
Finally, some colour about Dan – a complex character. Dan and I fly out together with BA, and Dan currently plans to take only a cabin bag for his week’s-worth of belongings in order to avoid the fee associated with checking a larger bag into the hold. Consider the man we have here: a man who cheerfully stumped up $10k in cash for the Main Event and punted it off in level 2, but won’t turn the heating on in his flat in January. A complex character indeed.
I hope this post helps to paint a richer picture of the contenders you’ll read more about in February! As an addendum to Tom’s introductions, I’m obliged to break the unfortunate news that Eirik and Craig won’t actually be joining us on this trip any longer, leaving a confirmed squad of 11.
Tom and I are in London at the same time in early February on respective work duties, so it’s possible that we’ll get together for food and central London poker - if so, I’m sure we’ll pull a post together as the final foreword to the TR-proper.
Last edited by R*R; 01-20-2019 at 02:21 PM.