Ronnie O’Sullivan

The sight of Ronnie ‘The Rocket’ O’Sullivan gliding around the snooker table at The Crucible, Sheffield is a glorious sight. He is a wonderful player and make a complicated game looking ridiculously easy. But what is also clear is that the game is no longer the ‘must watch’ tv that it used to be.

Back in the day, snooker was the big thing to watch on Bank Holiday Monday in May. The game had stars and they were payed very well. Now the constant message from the snooker rooms is that you cannot earn money playing the game. In fact the star of modern snooker Ronnie O’Sullivan had retired last year and only came back because he had some bills to pay.

The fact that Ronnie O’Sullivan can literally come back and enter the blue riband tournament and look like he is going to win it (he is leading Barry Hawkins 10 – 7 over night) is a testament to how low the game has sunk. The denigration of the game follows on from allegations and evidence of match fixing and drug use. 

The match fixing was so prevalent that even a former champion – John Higgins was caught discussing fixing matches for betting scams. Obviously this tarnishes the sport and like wrestling it becomes a joke if you think that the result of a match has already been decided.

John Higgins’s bribed video

With Ronnie O’Sullivan not caring to play in the run of the mill tournaments to concentrate on only the World Championship must be a poke in the eye to all the big wigs and journey men who take the sport seriously.

Barry Hearn the big man of the game must have wished that Ronnie O’Sullivan was knocked out early in the tournament as he is making a mockery of the game. Clearly Barry Hearn cannot call him out as Ronnie O’Sullivan is the biggest name in the game and calling him out would not look good for sponsors and image.

So as we enjoy the sunshine and drinks and get ready for the evening it is a pity that the game that at one time got 18 million people watching is now the play thing of apparent paupers and crooks.

Ronnie O’Sullivan contemplates retirement after the World Snooker Championship final 2012

Amanda Knox

The woman who has been convicted of murdering Meredith Kercher, has written a book…as you do! The reason why she has written her book is that she claims that her side of the story has not been told. Hence, she needs to write a book to give her version and this will prove her innocence and therefore everything will be all right.

Problem! Patrick Lumumba, along with Raffaele Sollecito and Amanda Knox have been convicted of the murder although Rudy Guede is the only person in prison for the murder. Why I am discussing this is that I was playing poker with a friend and she insist that Amanda Knox is guilty as sin. I am completely on the fence and I am really not bothered. However, it seems this case brings out strong emotions about her guilt. 

After reading all the articles about the case (well skimming briefly some articles), it is my view that if I was creating a betting market I would have it 4/5 (1.8) Guilty, 4/5 (1.8) Innocent, ie a complete even steven.

So to help with the ‘form’ here are the video evidence which to be honest does not prove guilt or innocence but will help with re-enforcing any view you have.

Amanda Knox back in court

Amanda Knox: Diane Sawyer’s Exclusive Interview

The Magical Tipster

It seems that the premier sport betting tipster has been sent a video pro-porting to be a video of a ‘J’ai envie de toi’ moment during a game of strip poker. All I can say is the The Magical Tipster should stick to picking horses and not fights with the management!

Groucho Marx

Have you noticed recently that there are new poker rooms popping up everywhere and loads of people are being invited to them. Loads of people except me!

I was wondering that the other day. I do not seem to be invited to anything recently. Not even the rag tag poker club in pubs, and, online you might as well forget it. What have I done to receive such poor treatment?

OK I am not the biggest whale out there but I am a loyal person who losses on a regular basis and the way things have been going I could be described as a fish. When I win I don’t get miserable people chasing me down the road saying I cheated, in fact most players are quite supportive  I may have told a few white lies to either get involved or get out of a dodgy situation, but not to the extent that people would be wary of me when the invitations go round.

So, he question still hold why am I not invited to partake in these new and shiny poker rooms? At this moment in time I like to think that I am in the same league as Groucho Marx in that my presence is on a level in which I can be dismissive of these new rooms. Lets have a further look at my hypothesis:

I refuse to join any club that would have me as a member.
Groucho Marx 

If these new rooms are so hot then they would have me at a flash, obviously they are not therefore I refuse to lower myself and be apart of their tawdry organisation.

Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies.
Groucho Marx 

As been noted in my series of refering to political figures in the terms of poker players, I have been a bit controversial and sometimes I have drawn criticism for my rather liberal biased views, well I am glad to stand by these rules and I will never censor my beliefs until I have had a better offer.

Those are my principles, and if you don’t like them… well, I have others.
Groucho Marx 

I can be hired to the highest bidder and also I can play poker at a high level if the price and game is right. Therefore this allows me the scope and latitude to do whatever I like and sometimes it may mean criticising a particular poker room if they mess about with money I want to withdraw or other such random hassles. If you want me to shut up then it will cost you.

 Maybe these are the reasons why organisations wont invite me to their brand new and shiny poker tables – unless they are desperate or beyond reproach….who knows?

Groucho as veterinarian posing as Head Psychiatrist

Elizabeth Warren

As my regular readers will know I have a unnatural obsession with American politics. Ever since Lehmans Day 2008 when Henry Paulson the US financial leader basically wanted the US government under George W Bush to give him trillions of dollars but no questions on what he was going to do with it. Luckily there was enough sensible people that thought it was beyond belief that tax payers could not ask its government what one of its official was going to do with trillions of dollars. In the end the public found out that Paulson was going to socialise the losses and privatise the profits! An absolute unique policy for any government to pursue. It turned out it became World policy for all those nations who had dodgy banks.

Amazingly most people accepted that they were going to pay for the lifestyle of bankers and their allies who messed up the economy, for the foreseeable future and didn’t rise up and had a revolution. In fact no one has been charged with complete recklessness and fraud when there was clearly a racket going on in which bankers were betting on red and it came black just like a roulette table. The best bit is that they got all their money back with bonuses, because the tax payer was made to hand over trillions of dollars to the cover the lifestyle and pretend that it was for the good of the economy.

Obviously there was other ways but that would mean more people knowing about the mess these guys did and the people may get a bit upset by the turn of events. One way was for the UK government to give every man woman and child roughly £25,000 ($37,000) and let them do whatever they wanted to do with that money. This was seen as ‘wasteful’ and not very controllable, whereas giving the bankers so much money that  they could buy another super yacht would mean that they right people who were masters of the universe in terms of finance would then lubricate the markets and help create a stable economy so that the bankers can do it all again as they are too big to fail.

So nearly five years later things are back to normal in the sense that the bankers can bet on anything they want and the public can experience the joys of austerity to make sure the bankers maintain the lifestyle they are used to, including getting found out about manipulating LIBOR in which they fiddled the markets and robbed anyone who had a loan in the past 20 years out of millions and millions of pounds, dollars and euros.

The thing about this is that all governments are really scared of the bankers and therefore the regulators will not arrest anyone and try them for everything between treason, theft and fraud. Except one woman and her name is Elizabeth Warren!

Elizabeth Warren is doing the job all leaders should be doing but are too busy feathering their nest and coming out with crack pot ideas such as trickle down economics, creating privatised monopolies especially in utilities and other Ayn Rand inspired clap trap. Mt biggest regret about Elizabeth Warren is that she is an American and not British. I also predict that she will not last long over there because she is looking at ending this nonsense, therefore stepping on some very powerful toes. If she does manage to stop the tax payer from funding casino banking they should raise a statue to this woman. However, I think she will suffer the same fate as Kennedy, King, Kennedy, Lennon etc.

Check out the video and watch her ask simple but accurate question on why banks are not only too big to fail, but are now too big to jail?

Senator Elizabeth Warren’s First Banking Committee Hearing

The Mayan Calender

Today we will witness the end of the world and those who are lucky enough to be in a valley somewhere in France will be whisked off to a paradise somewhere in heaven!

See you tomorrow….

R.E.M. - It’s The End Of The World

Skeeter Davis - The End Of The World

The name is Jack – it’s Jack Reynard
Now watch your back cos I’ll mark your card
Like a fox in the shadows, I lurk in the woods
And if you ain’t looking, gonna bag all your goods

Don’t need 3 R’s, for me it’s 3 B’s
It’s birds and booze and betting – that’s me
Don’t got no home, ain’t got no chick
The hotel moms can suck my…

Dickens was a man who made money by the book
But I reap from the weak cos I don’t give a…
Funky punks drunk – I wait like a saint
The devil’s in my game when they’re feeling faint

With my booty in hand, and my hand on her booty
I’ll win your girl, and take all your looty
And life is grand when you got no ties
But don’t get clingy cos I’ll kiss you goodbye

The Magical Tipster

It is with great anticipation that we hear The Magical Tipster has a hot bet early on in 2013. It is one of his specials but he is waiting until he gets the prices he wants before letting the World know. So in order to ingratiate ourselves with the wizard of odds we thought we would grovel and creep with a poem and a list of videos showing his greatest hits against all sorts of worthy opponents in 2012.

Who can forget Monkey Bet, Satanic Bear and The Villain all laid to waste never to recover? So hopefull we can all start 2013 with a nice big win and that will set us all up to do some damage to the bookmakers at Cheltenham (Attaglance 20/1 and Bellvano 20/1 finishing a great festival).

Ode to The Magical Tipster 

Tipster’s the name, and Magic’s my game
Hoodoo or voodoo, it all works the same
One minute here, one minute there
You got an market? I got four spare!

All through the years the victims have come
Dazzled by my magic cos it makes them numb
Here comes the next one, Arthur the Bookie
My pricess fly at him, and he crumbles like a cookie

And who’s that guy – it’s Sligo Tom
I flash him my over-round, and he’s crying to his mom
Think you’re a hustler? I’ll make you lose focus
Your best horses’s have bolted – now that’s hocus pocus!

The Magical Tipster v Monkey Bet

Monkey Bet First Choice

Satanic Bear’s Grand National 2012 Pick

A Game Of Strip Poker

The PokerKnave

The name is Jack – it’s Jack Reynard
Now watch your back cos I’ll mark your card
Like a fox in the shadows, I lurk in the woods
And if you ain’t looking, gonna bag all your goods.

Don’t need 3 R’s, for me it’s 3 B’s
It’s birds and booze and betting – that’s me
Don’t got no home, ain’t got no chick
The hotel mom’s can suck my…

Dickens was a man who made money by the book
But I reap from the weak cos I don’t give a…
Funky punks drunk – I wait like a saint
The devil’s in my game when they’re feeling faint.

With my booty in hand, and my hand on her booty
I’ll win your girl, and take all your looty
And life is grand when you got no ties
But don’t get clingy cos I’ll kiss you goodbye.

~~~~~

PokerKnave So Far…

Bullseye

Pub games like darts and pool are getting mashed up with poker. It is simple why this need to mix two difficult games is sensible for pubs.

When you go tout for relief sometimes you need excitement so a quiet game of poker just wont do it, likewise a quiet game of pool or darts do not measure up so by combining the three or even just two helps to stimulate the pleasure part of the brain with intellectual and skilful thoughts. 

Why beach volleyball is an Olympic sport and darts is not has always baffled me. Both are skilful and fun to watch. To play darts at any standard requires skill. Yes the people can be drinking beer monsters and still throw decent darts could be an image problem. However, in his day when alive, a drunken Jocky Wilson could still have beaten 99 out of hundred average darts player who was stone cold sober, he was that good.

So with this in mind I will post the rules and regulations for the Knot Knockout:

This Sunday (18-11-12) at The Staffordshire Knot, Darlaston.

Entry fee will be £3, registration at 3pm and ToE oche 3:30pm.

It’s a 301 – best of 3.