Acceptance Speech

One may have thought that the awards season had reached its peak with the Oscars on Sunday night, but you would be mistaken. In a poll which closed at 4am Wednesday morning, with a whopping 30% of the vote, I was crowned Boards Blog Writer of 2006.
I find myself wishing I had watched the Oscars to get a hint at how other great award winners carried themselves, but alas we will have to wing it. I believe the normal thing is to thank all the people without whom I could never have hoped to win this award.
Thanks to
Pat “I’ll be very surprised if I don’t win tonight” O Callaghan, for the nomination.
Len “The Impresario” Collins, for being lead in my favourite blog entry on bluffing.
Donal “Tight Weak” MacAonghusa and Conor “Just Tight” Maguire for (badly) proof reading my blogs.
All the other wonderful character that have made up the blogs, John “Finger Rims” Honan, Dave “Midlife Crisis” Curtis, John “The Mean Drunk” Cullinane, that wonderful Ferrari Laptop, and most importantly,
Paul “The Hangman” Roper, just for being you.
Also, I think my popularity on boards is no secret, so I really have to say thanks to the 18 bad mind individuals that voted for me in this poll.
To my fellow nominees I would like to say that there is no shame losing. Unless, of course, it’s by a lot, like a crushing defeat, ya know, if you found yourself completely outclassed and dominated. Not that this was the case here. So well done to you all and better luck next year.
Finally, I feel this award will spur me on to even greater things in 2007, I’m telling ya, before you know it I’ll be bigger then Jesus.

Poker - A game of Skill or Chance

This is a debate that has been going on for years, in university studies, the courts and I’m sure has been brought up in every poker room in the country at one time or another. Being a poker player and for the most part a sick degenerate gambler, I have always stood firmly on the skill side of the argument, but some of the things I have witnessed recently have started to make me doubt this position.
Last night for instance, I saw Pat “Connaught till the day I die” O Callaghan, an otherwise intelligent guy with a reputation as a poker player, limp first to act, call a massive raise preflop, flop 2 hearts, call bets to the river, hit a heart and move all in and get called by the poor bastard who flopped top set and turn over the 7-2 of hearts.And the cocky shit sat back with a satisfied look on his face as if he had just done something truly brilliant.
How about this one, Pat “There be no deals, I want to practise my final table play for the Irish Open” once again first to speck comes out raising and catches a massive reraise from a kid that has sat quiet for an hour without playing a hand, and I mean quiet, he had a hoody shadowing his pale gaunt face and was slumped so low in his chair he was almost under the table, he could almost have been an apprentice to Derek “The Sith Lord” Murray, Christy “The Morbid” goes all in for a few shekels and Pat calls the Kid. The Kid has AK, Morbid has QJ and Pat show AJ, no problem to him, a jack on the flop and that’s all she wrote. I realise that a lot of Pats superiority at the game can probably be put down to being from Cork, but all of it?
Moving away from my own recent personal experience, I put forward a view point of someone whom I am sure gets to witness every aspect of the game on a nightly basis. Sylvester, the boss man of the Corrib Casino, when asked who had won the €100 freezeout the previous Monday, replied “I don’t know the 2 who got heads up, haven’t seen them before, but I reckon if you tied them both together and shoved a copy of Super System II up their ass, ya still wouldn’t have the makings of half a poker player”. Almost poetic isn't it.
I am afraid it is indisputable, the idea that poker is a game of skill is simply a romantic notion we have that helps us justify the feeding of the sickness we all have within us. Remember lucky always beats good and

THE DEMON IS YOUR MASTER.