DUBLIN BELLYBUSTERS

Last Sunday, I was approached by a man who I both know by reputation and as a friend of a friend. Joe Attila Tosaky (better known as draqq in the online poker world) is a successful poker player in both the live and online arena. He has also made a killing over the past few years staking players through the parttimepoker.com website. A little over a year ago, he extended his interests beyond merely staking players. He prudently determined that there was an untapped niche in the market. What was it? The synergy of staking and coaching. Many sites offered training and tuition to poker players (Cardrunners, Stox, Pokerpwnage, etc) and Parttimepoker.com had a strangle-hold over the staking market. There was no-one, however, combining both of these areas, offering mentoring and backing to up-and-coming players, looking to make a career in poker.

And so, 'SNG Mentors' was born, a website dedicated to the instruction and financial support of poker players - and with it, an opportunity for young talented amateurs to develop their skills and define thier style with the help of seasoned professionals and without the risk of going broke. With their primary focus on the SNGs on Pokerstars, the experts in their ranks include Vers, Shen888, Manhat10ite, Jontsef, Whoopsy_Dazy, Wutank, Rat Sauce 89 and of course Draqq himself. Combined, these 8 players have almost half a million dollars in Pokerstars SNG earnings.

One year in, Draqq and his co-investors are looking to extend their operation. The Full Tilt market is their target and with that in mind, they are adding Full Tilt based pros to their coaching staff. I welcomed Draqq's offer to join his troupe and my first student is the talented Danish SNG grinder, Rasmus 'Sibist' Sibast. As the weeks and months go by, I expect to take several other students under my wing. Using Hand History Analysis and any other teaching tools at my disposal, my distinctly hermeneutic approach to coaching will allow players to grow and evolve from within their existing games, developing a style with which they are comfortable. Private one2one coaching with me will be advertised on the site but I hope to put in 30-40 hours a month with the students of SNG mentors, adding to the success of this fine enterprise.

It's been a busy month. Returning to my ultra-small-ball roots, I'm no longer a money-spewing donkey on the online tables, I beat my friend Julian '0vash0rk' Hasse at his own game (PLO!), won a Heads-up prop-bet, won the ISOP Player of the Series prop bet (Stephen 'Stinky Budz' O'Connor won Player of the Series but sadly for him, happily for me, he wasn't in the wager) and I spent a week with Dr Fill Good on this side of the pond (during which I saw the Pixies in New York, went to Mohegan Sun, lost a bunch on the NLHE cash-game tables, won a bunch on the PLO table, saw Phish in Albany, tried to sell cod-liver oil capsules to drug addicts outside the venue and got hustled by Patrick at a Mets game).

With the holidays fast approaching, I fear things may only get busy again soon so the plan is to scribble a few blogs over the next few days. Therefore, without further preamble, allow me to return to my recent weekend in Albany aka 'Sambuca-Gate':

We were walking from our car to a parking garage where I was to be begrudgingly indoctrinated (by Michelle) into the American tradition of 'tailgating', when all of a sudden we were faced with 3 cops up ahead. (For those of you unfamiliar with the term, 'tailgating' in this instance is not driving to close to the vehicle in front of you but rather drinking booze outside of ones parked vehicle with friends. In Ireland, this sort of activity is called 'knacker-drinking' and I grew out of it when I was about 15. I mean, what is the attraction of standing around in the cold when there are perfectly good pubs to go to? It's just so uncivilised!) Ordinarily, I would be concerned with the fact that I had an open bottle of hard liquor in my pocket but seeing as there were approximately 20,000 Phish-heads wandering the streets with their bottles of beer and spliffs in open sight, it was safe to assume a measure of tolerance by New York's finest. I couldn't have been more wrong.

"Evening officers", said I as they made eye-contact. "What's in your pocket there Sir", said one of the cops. I took out my two-thirds bottle of Sambuca. "You're gonna have to empty that", he said. I looked further up the street to the tens of revelers all drinking from opened beer-cans. "Are you serious?" "I am.", he replied. "You want me to just empty it onto the street?", I asked. He nodded, "It's the law, Sir'. Begrudgingly, I turned up my bottle and to make matters even more dramatic, the optic made my bottle painfully slow to empty. As Sambuca dribbled from my bottle, I told them how ridiculous this was and asked why they had singled me out. Patrick and Michelle urged me to stop complaining but I couldn't let it sit. As we walked to the nearest package store to buy more booze, we encountered dozens more cops all standing passively amongst thousands of people who were all enjoying an al fresco drink. Every so often, I would stop and ask them about their policy regarding on-street drinking and they would explain that they were not condoning it but, the night that was in it , they were happy to turn a blind-eye. 

I insisted to Michelle and Patrick that this was a clear example of racial profiling. They laughed and said that I was paranoid. I told them that the cop who stopped us was Italian and as soon as he heard my accent, he pounced - let's fuck up the Paddy's night by taking his booze! We bought more liquor and headed for the parking garage when low and behold, who do we meet but the three cops. Surrounded by drunks, pill-heads and stoners all drinking, popping and toking, I approached them, asking if they were going to do anything about all the law-breaking taking place around them. They told me to mind my own business. I pointed to all the law-breakers and told them that they had racially discriminated against me and that they were no better than the LAPD cops who attacked Rodney King in 1991.

In retrospect, I was lucky not to be hauled into prison. Then again, maybe I wasn't coz a prison cell would certainly have been warmer and more civilised than where I was headed.