Thursday, April 28, 2011

Pioneer One "Triangular Diplomacy"

Pioneer One is a serialized drama produced and distributed online through VODO. Downloaded almost 2.000.000 times and winner for Best Drama Pilot at the 2010 New York Television Festival, this show is independently produced and financed by viewer donations.
This awesome project continues in Episode 4 "Triangular Diplomacy"...

Halfway through the Calgary quarantine, the media begins to question whether the story about the crashed satellite is the real truth. Meanwhile, Secretary McClellan starts to play hardball with the Russians in pursuit of his own truth. But everything hinges on what Yuri, the frightened boy at the center of it all, might have to say...

Enjoy the new episode and don't forget to support the project!

Wednesday, April 20, 2011

Circles

It's a beautiful and sunny Spring in Brussels but I just keep running around in circles.

A few days have passed since Black Friday. Nothing really changed here in Europe. Got a mailbox full of messages from European poker sites to offer large deposit bonuses and to assure that my money is safe with them. I think I'll just stick with Stars and Full Tilt for now. I'll keep an eye on what will be happening with these companies but I'm just to lazy to move my funds. Too much trouble to start new loyalty and bonus programs on different poker sites. I prefer to go down with the sinking ship if it ever comes to that...

It's a beautiful and sunny Spring in Brussels but I just keep running around in circles.

On Black Friday I was told by a friend that the collapse of online poker might be a good thing in my case. It is quite rare that a big fish is able to walk away from the game with a profit... I've lost a lot these last few weeks, that's a fact. A combination of bad luck, bad play and a general lack of confidence (in anything) led to a huge downfall. Now I sort of left the game of poker behind. It didn't play a single hand since last Friday. I'm not even affected by the poker ban but this is as a good a time to quit as any other. Looking for different ways to give meaning to my bleak existence I only found alcohol and smokes...

It's a beautiful and sunny Spring in Brussels but I just keep running around in circles.

Still stuck in the same old day job. Keep telling myself I can do other things if I want. Turned thirty somewhere last month, still driving around in a van. Today, as a final act of humiliation, I had to deliver a package to my ex-wife on her new address. Seven years ago we arrived together in this city. I was going to be king and she would be my queen. Now she orders shoes from China and I'm just the delivery guy...

It's a beautiful and sunny Spring in Brussels but I just keep running around in circles.

Saturday, April 16, 2011

The End

If you visited pokerstars.comfulltiltpoker.com or ub.com yesterday or early this morning this was all there was to see:
PokerStars and Full Tilt (and UB, bet let's ignore that cheating site from here on) can no longer accept American players in real-money games. Outside the US these sites are still available (for now) but the action is slow (I'm currently staring at the 200NL Full Ring Rush lobby, only 30 players are seated) There are strong rumors that Full Tilt and PokerStars will shut down globally somewhere in the next 30 hours. In short, the future is highly insecure. There's only one piece of sound, reliable advice bouncing around Twitter and the forms at the moment:

If you have a significant amount of money on any online poker site it's probably best to try to cash out right now (if you still can, that is)...
Good luck!

Sunday, April 10, 2011

Taking Down The Tilt Monkey

Seven weeks ago I got back from Cambodia. The return to the day job and the daily poker grind quickly turned into a big cluster fuck. The first few weeks, the memories of the beach still fresh and alive, were all right. Then there were a few bumps in the road. Where running bad slowly turns into playing bad turns into feeling low and miserable...
Bleak days on endless monkey tilt.
Fuck this.
Why lose hundreds of dollars a day playing poker when Angry Birds is only €3,99 in the App store?

After Angry Birds I was still not #winning so I ended up taking a few pictures here and there. This made me feel strangely at ease.
When the shutter closes there's only now. The lens provides perspective. Framing shots requires considering different points of view. It's hard to stay stressed out while looking for the bigger picture... There's more in life than online poker after all.

Enjoy today to keep the tilt monkey away...