DUBLIN BELLYBUSTERS

I'm So Happy Coz Today I Found My Friends, They're In My Computer
Lying in the jacuzzi of the Warwick Hotel in Downtown Seattle on Monday, I indulged one of those Beckettian streams of consciousness. The bubbles did their work and my mind wandered. I got to thinking how I would be absolutely lost without my computer. Now, I realise that, in this post-Facebook era, this is neither profound or unique but it did seem worthy of note. Thanks to my beloved Mac (and Skype), I met my girlfriend Michelle. I have become friends with Rounder63 from California, Dr Fill from Nova Scotia, WhySoCereus from Connecticut, Dinkydoofus from New York, Chipless Wonder, Galactus X and all the Badbeatspoker.net gang from Ohio, Jacaranda from Oregon, Thang911 from Atlanta, Holdemplayer81 from Raleigh, Break_evan from Germany, Good night baby from Moscow and Stinky Budz from 'De Nort Side'. On top of that, I have made the acquaintance of countless others from every continent (even Antarctica!). Most of these people are in their 20s and for the most part, footloose and fancy-free! It suddenly struck me - there must surely be a way for all these like-minded, free-spirited people to use each other...


The Man Who Sold The World (The Cobain Unplugged Version Obviously)

* 10 online poker players
* 1 year
* 10 destinations worldwide

What if you travel the world, changing cities every 5 weeks but always arriving to a comfortable 2-bedroom apartment, fully kitted out for the needs of a young online poker player. Sounds nice, doesn't it?You could go from Las Vegas to Hawaii and from there to Melbourne. Your next stop could be Bangkok before travelling on to Moscow. Amsterdam next before a short hop to Barcelona and then Dublin. New York beckons before finishing you trip in the beautiful Paradise Island in the Bahamas.If each of the 10 players finds a suitable, well located pad in their respective cities, they can spend the first month there, kitting it out with a Poker War-room (triple-monitor et al). Every 5-weeks for the rest of the year, there is a location switcheroo as each player moves to the next city on their respective lists (always moving counter-clockwise around the globe). The beauty of this would be cost-efficiency - you would have all the mod-cons without paying the hotel rates!


It's Okay For Michelle To Eat Fish Coz They Don't Have Any Feelings
Yesterday, Michelle and I rented a car (Fuck you Avis BTW!) and drove to the stunning Soqualmie Water Falls. It was a nice change of pace as we spent our first three days in Seattle doing city-based touristy stuff. Thanks to our City Pass (good value @ $50), we did the Space Needle, the Science Museum, The Imax, the Mono-Rail, the Sci-Fi Museum, the Aquarium, a boat trip around the bay and my personal fave, the Experience Music Project.

On the way back from Soqualmie, we decided to get in a poker session at the local casino. A $2/$5 game was the only game in town so we pulled up a couple of chairs and bought in for the table maximum - just $300 or 60 BBs. I spent the first two hours, running into cooler after cooler. I lost my first buy-in with KK to AA all-in preflop. I took my second to $500 before losing half of it with the nut flush to a boat. The rest of that buy-in disappeared when my AQ went all-in versus A5 on an Ace-Jack-7 board only for a 5 to come on the turn.

Meanwhile, Michelle was steadily building a stack, eating up the fishes, one small bite at a time. She had over $700 when I decided that I had done enough laps of the casino and was going to go for one more buy-in. Three hours later, I left with almost $600 (for a $300 loss) and Michelle had $800 ($500 gain). Regardless of the bottom line, it was a pleasant evening with a nice bunch of guys, several of whom clearly knew what they were doing.

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