This is a good point. Yes, those set-up lines were a mistake: as well as being cliched, they were over-heated, setting up the expectation that something big was going to happen when I knew it wasn't going to. You might say it was a bit dishonest, even, to use such obvious cliffhangers when I knew I wouldn't deliver. It just felt like an easy to way to keep people's interest over what was a long series of articles; but I can see it backfired a little.

It almost looked like you found something big and got bribed to fizzle it and go to the Zoo instead...but nah, that would just be...preposterous.

Thanks, your posts in this thread are great. Before I went on the trip, I spoke with an old friend who works for Associated Press. We were flatmates aged 19-22, when we were both trying to become writers/journalists. He managed it while I didn't - his explanation is that my writing is more "art" writing while he's a great reporter. It showed in what we were studying - he took anthropology and politics while I studied literature.

His advice before this trip was that I ought to read some Hunter S Thompson journalism and see how he managed to get people who didn't really want to speak to him to talk. Also of course along with Tom Wolfe and other new journalists he shows how to write reportage with the imagination of fiction. I know that style is old news now and has been overdone, but I would certainly do well to read some of it again for inspiration.

As it was, I acted less Hunter S Thompson, more like Hugh Grant...

I'm quick to make excuses for myself, but beyond going to the underground clubs I don't think that in the space of a week there was much bigger I could have found, given that Blom himself was unavailable.

BTW, Boychick, what's your story? Swede living in the US, made fortune in NYC finance, now spends most of his time in Vegas? You spent 300 nights in the Bellagio in two years?

Shhhhhhhh. Pwease not to expose me.

I know that hind site is 20/20, but I was thinking about your adventure, and how I would have approached it, full knowing that the goal was probably an impossible one. I would have gone straight into the poker scene there and presented your purpose as doing a piece on the Swedish poker scene. You could have gotten closer to more players, and never have to mention Blom at first. I could see you getting players lined up to talk about poker in Sweden. You could press them about who they think the best players are live and online coming out of Sweden, and let them bring up Isilidur1. You know its bound to come up. I would then go from there cause they opened the door. It takes finesse, but, worst case, you get a greart story on the poker scene, best case, you crack this nut. Anyways... just some thoughts....

Maui, I think you're right that would have been one way to approach it. If you did it that way you would plan the trip for weeks in advance and work out exactly who you would be meeting on what day, as many people as possible, and big names. So even if you were out there for just a week, as I was, you'd make all the time count.

I'm sure you still wouldn't get to meet Blom, but you might be able to meet some of his friends, and get them to talk to you, if you didn't go in there so obviously just interested in Isildur1. You'd be asking people like DrPill and Andersson and Sumpas and Nabbes about THEIR poker careers.

Most people are flattered to be asked to talk about themselves; but will naturally protect a friend against strangers. So, don't mention Blom; ask his friends about their own game; win their trust.

You still wouldn't get to meet him, but you'd get a good article on the lifestyles of young Swedish pros. And, having won their respect, when Blom does decide to talk to the press, you'd have already won over the trust of his friends and they might point him your way.

That would have been a bit of a more sophisticated approach than dropping his name to any young guy standing around the Cosmopol poker club!

FML - check out this post from another forum regarding the private game in Uddevalla I couldn't get into because my Swedish friend who knocked on the door decided to sound like a cop:

"Really funny thing is that it was me who asked from the inside of that door who it was ... Funny to read about that here now! We never open the door when the person dont identify themselves..

And yes, I know Victor Bloom quite well as he used to play at my poker club so the guy searching for him couldve got some really funny stories.."


By Power User - Zelnik, on a poker torrent site I can't link to here.

Part of me hopes that post is a gimmick, but it was on a really obscure forum so probably not...

I never understood the genius behind the conversation at the door of the underground club anyways...

“Who are you?”
“Are you playing poker in there?”
“Who are you?
“You don't know me
“Who are you?

WTF were you thinking? His own mother would not have let him in after that one. How about telling the guy your names and explaining him how you found out about the club instead of sounding like either the police or an armed robber?

really good read, shame he never found him

Yes exactly! We didn't know any names to drop but I wish he could have said "Oh hi, my name is XXX, I'm here to play poker, I heard about the game from a friend of a friend..." or something.

Instead it seems like he was almost hostile.

He's a nice guy and had been a lot of help telling me his own stories about Blom. But at the club I think he had the manner of a teenage boy who says to a girl "So, I suppose you don't want to go out with a loser like me?"

In other words, he didn't want to go in anyway, so was just trying to get rejection over with as quickly as possible....

Great read Jimm

OP wrote the entire tale from the backroom of a poker club, no expenses occurred, bigger hoax than Isildur himself

Nope OP posted pics and videos with times/dates which matched so very unlikely a hoax imo.

Yeah I have plane boarding pass pdf, entry tickets to the Cosmopol, a few ATM receipts, a Swedish bus pass, a map of Uddevalla, and other random stuff I'm unlikely to have got in London.

You don't need to prove yourself further imo let the tards hate and say you are a fake etc.

Please forgive bump, but I was recently interviewed about this trip by Jesse May for The Poker Show. It's episode 22 part 1 and you can download it here:

http://www.boylesports.com/Areas/Pok...html#action=s9

I heard you got yourself a new job LJ, congrats to you!

Ah thinly veiled brag type bump eh Jimm? Please do elaborate...

Yes I'm now working full time for Gutshot.com, the UK poker site that hosted my blog for the last two years. They're the guys who sent me to Sweden in search of Viktor Blom, and kept the faith in me through times when my writing had nothing to do with poker.

They've just made me their web editor, working out of their offices in Old Street just next to the International club. It's a dream job for me. Ten years after leaving university I've finally found a job I love and that uses my skills, i.e. surfing poker websites all day and writing about a game at which I'm a hopeless player. I've already got to meet Kara Scott, Tatjana Pasalic, and Viffer. How much better can life get?

In the next week or so I'm going to start writing them a daily poker news blog which will hopefully be amusing. I'm looking forward to writing features like the Blom series, and interview interesting players. And I'm also looking to commission other writers and generally make Gutshot.com a destination poker site.

And of course I'll continue to write about my frankly rather worrying obsession with Isildur1...

Tatjana is croatian no? thought Irecognised the accent.

I'm not gonna read it unless you post pics of swedish chicks......I refuse to believe you don't have a folder on two on your hard drive. You are not playing anymore now?

Congrats luckyjimm!

Yes, she's Croatian, but she has a slight Scottish accent because she's based up there. I was pretty disturbed to find she knew who I was and had read my articles. She told me she lurks NVG all the time... she may even be reading this!