Ain't No Smoke

First came UKpoker, with the database of Mark's ever so impressive online results.

Then in chipped the Hendon Mob, with their exhaustive trawl through tournament results the world over (except the ones that didn't comply with Data Protection! Presumably Mr Anon of Brighton doesn't want the Child Support Agency to know how much he's winning).

So here at Bastard Towers, we decided to announce the formation of our own Bastard Database. We aim to bring to you a comprehensive list of all players banned from casinos in the UK, with a short description of the misdeed (or more likely, outright criminality) that caused their downfall.

But folks, we cannot do this without the generous help of our loyal - and growing - readership, so we hereby invite all of you to name and shame as many people as possible by sending details to pokerbastard@hotmail.com, or by a comment to this post.

You send 'em, we'll post 'em.

Bastard Gongs 2004

Player of the Year

Best - James Vogl. Managed to win massive World Series event despite the handicap of being coached by Ron "Mad Yank" Fanelli and Victor Bede.
Worst - Barny Boatman. Has sponsorship money ever been spent worse?

Tournament Performance of the Year

Best - Xuyen Pham. So there IS a decent player in that relationship!
Worst - Marty Wilson. "Wasn't his hand mucked?"

Cardroom of the Year

Best - The Vic. Well managed, high quality staff, and good numbers of players.
Worst - The Western. Was supposed to be the answer to a London poker player's prayers, but is merely an 800 seater white elephant that hosts what is basically a private game for the club's many owners.

Standard of Play at Cardroom

Best - The Vic, unfortunately.
Worst - Southampton. More play that has you gasping at it's incompetence than anywhere else in the UK.


Cardroom Staff of the Year

Best - The Vic. No frills, just incredibly competent.
Worst - Luton. Full of frills, but incredibly incompetent.

Dealer of the Year

Best - Deano, Vic. Doesn't make mistakes, ever.
Worst - Grey haired middle aged guy at Gutshot. More interested in getting involved in the players conversations and fawning over female players than in dealing properly.

Poker Website of the Year

Best - The Mob Forum. Useful information and entertaining ireverrence.
Worst - For the umpteenth year in succession UKPoker.com. I won't link to it, don't go there.

Poker Blog of the Year

Best - The Camel's blog. Funny, impassioned, and usually right.
Worst - The Wise Owl. Cutting and pasting fawning interviews is not a blog.

Like Moths To A Flame.

Reading reports of the Brighton Festival this week, I notice that among the leaders of the main event is none other than "cricketer Ed Giddins".

How at home this guy must feel among the cheats and card sharps of the Brighton Rendezvous, for this is the man who is currently banned from all forms of cricket for 5 years, having been found guilty of betting £7,000 on his county (Surrey) to lose a National League game. Earlier in his career, he had been sacked by a previous county and banned for 18 months, having tested positive for cocaine at a random drugs test.

Isn't it nice when fine upstanding members of the sporting world grace our poker rooms with their presence?

Poker Loopy

A post appeared on the Hendon Mob forum from one Andy Pyrah (who a google search tells me works for Matchroom), about the PacificPoker.com UK Open that graced out TV's last week.

Assuming the poster is indeed who he says he is, Mr Pyrah says, among other things, this -

Marty is a true proffesional (sic) at what ever he does, be it, playing in front of the cameras, working behind the scenes every hour of every day, or entertaining the online qualifers back at the hotel, ensuring that they enjoy their stay - There's nobody better at what he does.

If he is trying to suggest that a true professional would deliberately try and take the chips from a pot knowing that he hadn't won it, I'm afraid that Mr Pyrah knows less about the game than he claims to do.

Liam Flood is the best around. Anyone questioning Liam's credentials should hang their head in shame. Every 'TRUE' proffesional (sic) out there will agree.

Saying that someone is "the best around" doesn't make it so. Attacking people who rightly criticise Flood for the debacle of the wrongly awarded pot does not diminish Flood's responsibility. He fucked up, admit it.

Padraig Parkinson - This guy has been there done it, got the t-shirt several times over. How many of the 'posters' which knock him will achieve what he has in their lifetime?

Well, if they handed out awards for the most alcohol consumed by a poker player, then yes, Parkinson (did they name the shaking disease after him?) would be the poker equivalent of The Simpsons, but does no-one else see the irony of a NON poker player having a go at poker players for their lack of achievements in the game! What the fuck have YOU achieved Mr Pyrah?

The fact remains that this show is the latest in a long line of shoddy, unattractive and badly edited TV poker shows, with the now de rigeur inane commentary.

And every 'TRUE' proffesional out there will agree with me.

Cheat Watch (2)

Queen sang:

#A brand new angle, highly commendable,
Seaside Rendezvous#

I'm afraid I can't be quite as pleasant about the Redezvous Casino, Brighton.

It is home to a varied assortment of characters, and it appears to be the last casino in Britain not to have banned Koresh. This would appear to show an unusual degree of common sense by the management, as the massive amounts he is prone to drop at the roulette wheel must surely outweigh the occasional havoc he causes when he claims to have put the £300 on red before the ball landed.

But the ongoing cheating in the poker room is far more problematic. It hosts what I believe is the largest casino cash game in the country to be self-dealt, and this, if nothing else, should set the warning lights flashing. I have heard too many tales of dirty dealings there for it to be a coincidence, and for that reason I have studiously refrained from playing any cash games there.

The management of the poker room has been flawed from the outset. The first manager was keen but hopeless, having been given a spectacularly good reference from his previous employer, Roy Houghton at Russell Square, just so that he could get rid of him. The subsequent manager was frog-marched of the premises by Special Branch, and things have got little better since then.

The stupid thing is that the measures needed to tighten up procedures there are relatively minor, a dealer for the cash games, no cash allowed to be in play, regular changing of the decks, and management that understands the game and is aware of the strokes that can be, and are, pulled every day.

Sorry Freddie, it's not a brand new angle, but the same old ones.

Cheat Watch

The Tony Theo story has caused a bit of a rumpus on the Gutshot forum, with certain people calling for him to be banned, and others asking for clarification to be sought from the Vic for the reasons why they booted him out.

The amazing thing is that he appears not to have been banned by Grosvenor Luton, who specialise in the same type of self-deal comps as the one in which he was caught cheating. Presumably were he guilty of cheating at roulette or blackjack, Grosvenor would be quick to alert all the casinos in their chain, but when it is merely OUR money, no-one gives a fuck.

What is clear is that even if Gutshot do not rescind his membership, he will be watched like a hawk by the other players every time he shuffles, cuts, or deals, which will make it harder for him to try and pull any stunts again.

Dammed if I do

Amsterdam was the usual mixture of good tournaments, live fish, and high rakes. As usual, most of the top tournament players in Europe attended, so it would have made more sense to go to Blackpool, where some of Europe's worst players play. But Blackpool rivals Luton for abject shittiness, as well as the necessity to hire armed protection when leaving the casino with more than thirty quid in your pocket (which, let's face it, it's almost impossible not to do in a place where even Howard Plant can win tournaments on a regular basis).

Perhaps that's the answer, check the schedules carefully, decide where all the sharks are headed, and jet off in the opposite direction.

Compare and Contrast

From Pokerineurope.com:

Grosvenor Victoria, Sat 9th October, No Limit Hold 'Em Freezeout £3000 + £30.

Grosvenor Southampton, Tue 2nd November, No Limit Hold 'Em Freezeout £400 + £40.

Can this be true? Did Southampton charge a £40 entry fee on a £400 freezeout? If so this is this the biggest entry fee ever charged for a UK competition? And all for a crappy self-deal Tuesday afternoon competition?

Of course, this may just be down to Jon Shoreman's perpetually erratic typing, the real figure could have been £4, £10, or £13.67. Answers on a postcard please.

Mind you, I would gladly pay all that and more for the chance to watch the Norman Gold patented shuffle, purported to be the loudest and least effective shuffle in the world. I bet it confused the locals no end, which might explain his unlikely money finish.

Hit me baby

Two people have asked me to post a remarkable story that they have recently heard about a high profile UK poker pro and copious amounts of non-prescription drugs.

While I am quite happy to post such a story, I feel duty bound to at least attempt to verify it's accuracy first.

But if you have any stories that you think I might like to post, send me an email to pokerbastard@hotmail.com and i'll do my best to bring it to the world's attention.

Deep in the Brown stuff

You've got to laugh.

Apparently the "European Nations Team Challenge" in St. Petersburg descended into farce when three of the remaining four teams decided to collude with each other to eliminate the England team. I don't know the exact structure of the competition, but by all accounts it appears to have been easy for chip passing, soft playing and the like to have taken place, and there seems to have been no ionclination from the tournament directors to stop it.

Now on the face of it this appears to have been a grim experience for those who have been cheated, as well as a prima facie case of theft and/or corruption, so why did I laugh?

Well, one of the "faces" behind this venture (and incidentally, the recipient of a stomach-churning hagiography in Poker Digest some years back by the queen of arse lickers, Wendeen Eolis) is none other than Murray Brown, who also captained (!) the England team.

Brown is a nasty piece of work, and any event that shows him in a bad light is fine by me, and if the publicising of this event tells a wider audience what those of us unfortunate enough to have to play with him in the Vic already know about him, better still.