Con Meeting Weekend
Another meeting from Otakon/Otakorp, Inc. has come and gone, and with it some useful work and fun.
The meeting was a bit cramped (the room was smaller than we'd been led to believe), but productive. Nice to see a handful of new faces, and hope they'll stick around.
In addition to various status updates and corporate business, we did discuss some internal organizational stuff -- specifically a difference in how some people see the role of the board of directors, and whether the tone of certain statements implies a more authoritarian stance than the board really intends to convey. What I'm happy about is that (a) it got aired in open discussion rather than in whispers and grousing, (b) discussions were civil and people did their level best to keep personality conflicts out of the equation, and (c) those who are unhappy with certain things are reassured that they're not being ignored.
And that's all that needs to be said about that, at least in my public journal. It was followed by a cookout that, despite a rocky start (damn you, rain and poor directions) wound up being a lot of fun. And then a small number of us went back to my place to talk over a few other issues -- but mostly to play poker. We typically do $10 buy-in tournament style for fun/learning play with at least some stakes to it -- you're only out $10 at worst, and you could get a nice return if you lasted.
It was an interesting game for me -- I made a poor call early on, but for the first five or six hands, I had good cards but got edged out by higher pairs in each case, so I quickly got winnowed down. And then got a spectacular save on the river, completely putting me back in the game. This pattern repeated itself -- I'd get edged out by a slightly better hand (both of them the sort you really HAVE to play), lose nearly all my chips, and then come back from the dead with a very lucky river card. For some reason nines and fours kept coming to me and saving my bacon. Anyway, I came back from the dead three times, and ended up going heads-up with docthestampede. Unfortunately for me and my otherwise perfectly playable hand, and otherwise appropriate resistance to bullying, Terry had pocket aces and gained a third on the flop. I hope he posts the photo so I can call him a rat-bastard in his own journal.
The meeting was a bit cramped (the room was smaller than we'd been led to believe), but productive. Nice to see a handful of new faces, and hope they'll stick around.
In addition to various status updates and corporate business, we did discuss some internal organizational stuff -- specifically a difference in how some people see the role of the board of directors, and whether the tone of certain statements implies a more authoritarian stance than the board really intends to convey. What I'm happy about is that (a) it got aired in open discussion rather than in whispers and grousing, (b) discussions were civil and people did their level best to keep personality conflicts out of the equation, and (c) those who are unhappy with certain things are reassured that they're not being ignored.
And that's all that needs to be said about that, at least in my public journal. It was followed by a cookout that, despite a rocky start (damn you, rain and poor directions) wound up being a lot of fun. And then a small number of us went back to my place to talk over a few other issues -- but mostly to play poker. We typically do $10 buy-in tournament style for fun/learning play with at least some stakes to it -- you're only out $10 at worst, and you could get a nice return if you lasted.
It was an interesting game for me -- I made a poor call early on, but for the first five or six hands, I had good cards but got edged out by higher pairs in each case, so I quickly got winnowed down. And then got a spectacular save on the river, completely putting me back in the game. This pattern repeated itself -- I'd get edged out by a slightly better hand (both of them the sort you really HAVE to play), lose nearly all my chips, and then come back from the dead with a very lucky river card. For some reason nines and fours kept coming to me and saving my bacon. Anyway, I came back from the dead three times, and ended up going heads-up with docthestampede. Unfortunately for me and my otherwise perfectly playable hand, and otherwise appropriate resistance to bullying, Terry had pocket aces and gained a third on the flop. I hope he posts the photo so I can call him a rat-bastard in his own journal.