hollow halls
I played in a big poker tournament out at the Corn Exchange yesterday and placed about 40th out of 107. I was reasonably pleased with how I played; I got no hands for about an hour and a half and still pushed and shoved my way in the game. From a 5000 chip start I breezed up a bit, then down a bit, then ran a lowly pair of aces into four of a kind for about half my stack. Knocked down to 1600, fought back up to 6000ish. Eventually the blinds got heavy and I had a ticket to a Book Festival event at 8.30pm, so I switched to the "I just have one big chip" strategy and got crunched in a 3-way pot in time to get a lift to Charlotte Square.
That's not why I'm posting mind. This was the third or fourth day of the Edinburgh leg of the UK and Ireland Poker Tour and the regulars (I only played one event) were moaning. Now poker players like to whine about everything so you just ignore them. They complained the food selection was crap - it was, but they were next to a huge 24 hour supermarket. And this nobber who joined our table with a titanic stack of chips, and thus stood a good chance of winning a four-figure prize, was moaning that he wished he'd never bought in to the event because it didn't offer any tournament leaderboard points.
What got me was the emptiness of the experience for them. I had a good time - I wandered in, got a free T-shirt, played in a well-dealt game, shared some banter, made some moves and busted. The visitors had been there for days and seen precious little but the blue-tabled interior of the Corn Exchange. I asked a couple where they were staying and it turned out to be the Marriott, at the airport. The epicentre of the world's largest arts festival was two miles away, plus an international book festival, and they were hardly aware of it. Worse than that, not many of them were cashing, so they didn't even have the comfort of easy money.
I really don't fancy being "on the circuit". It seems a really hollow existence.
That's not why I'm posting mind. This was the third or fourth day of the Edinburgh leg of the UK and Ireland Poker Tour and the regulars (I only played one event) were moaning. Now poker players like to whine about everything so you just ignore them. They complained the food selection was crap - it was, but they were next to a huge 24 hour supermarket. And this nobber who joined our table with a titanic stack of chips, and thus stood a good chance of winning a four-figure prize, was moaning that he wished he'd never bought in to the event because it didn't offer any tournament leaderboard points.
What got me was the emptiness of the experience for them. I had a good time - I wandered in, got a free T-shirt, played in a well-dealt game, shared some banter, made some moves and busted. The visitors had been there for days and seen precious little but the blue-tabled interior of the Corn Exchange. I asked a couple where they were staying and it turned out to be the Marriott, at the airport. The epicentre of the world's largest arts festival was two miles away, plus an international book festival, and they were hardly aware of it. Worse than that, not many of them were cashing, so they didn't even have the comfort of easy money.
I really don't fancy being "on the circuit". It seems a really hollow existence.