I love Indian food. Since getting back to Melbourne I hadn’t found a regular place for my occasional Indian cravings, so I looked up Indian restaurant listings at www.yourrestaurants.com.au. I looked for the highest rated Indian places and found the place I’d seen while walking through downtown to be listed the highest, Gaylord Indian Restaurant. As I looked over the page I saw there was one customer review for the restaurant. It read as follows:
Not worth the effort
Located in the middle of the Melbourne CBD, this establishment seems to turn up its nose if you aren't in a suit. From the 6 requests for a jug of water before one came, and the derisive tone of the waiters, you could be forgiven for thinking they were in the business of trying to get you to leave.

The food itself was quite average, and for the cost is nothing to get excited about. The decor, like the restaurant itself looks good from afar, but on a closer inspection is quite tacky.

I'm sure it's reasonable if you look like you're worth a bundle, but forget it if you want a nice place to relax with friends.

Given that the ratings on the site were excellent however, and it was one of the easiest to get to in the area, I went to try it anyway. It was awesome. The food was great and plenty, the servers were polite and attentive, and the prices were beyond reasonable for a restaurant in downtown Melbourne. I decided I would write my own review in reaction to this clear life nits piece of shit, blasphemous article. Here is how my review, now posted on the site, reads:

Vinnie84 is a lying POS.
This excellent establishment, situated in Melbourne CBD, is totally fucking awesome. Nobody in the entire restaurant was wearing a suit, not even me with my propensity for wearing finely tailored suits that make me look more handsome than Dorian Gray.

I was brought water immediately by using an old restaurant trick called ASKING FOR IT. The waiters were by no means impolite or snobbish, what the previous moronic poster failed to realize is that a good portion of the staff does not have English as their first language and therefore are fairly brief with words in order to prevent confusion.

It seems clear to me that the previous poster was to self absorbed to realize such an obvious circumstance, likely leaning back in his chair and thinking to himself about that one and only time he had sex 27 years ago. I imagine when the waiter asked him if he would like some water in his subtle accent, Vinnie84 instead demanded that he “bring me the god damn hard stuff! I’ve got some forgetting to do.” After downing three fifths his bottle he began attempting to request water but in his drunken stupor was only capable of mumbling “Bringha me… bring me soma that’s clearish stuff!” The poor waiter, assuming he was asking for more vodka despite not having finished the previous bottle instead took the responsible route and refused him further service. After several screaming demands the waiter decided he’d better bring the man some water in hopes of preventing a case of alcohol poisoning in the restaurant.

When the waiter finally brought out Vinnie84’s dinner he was by far to inebriated to be able to taste it, and considering the horrible taste that the recollections of his droll, misspent life left in his mind, it’s no wonder the vileness spread to his taste buds.

As for the claim that the cost was ‘nothing to get excited about’, this is a blatant lie that makes it clear to me that Vinnie84 spends most of his dinners paying 50 cents to make the other bums eating out of the McDonalds trash get lost.

Most amusing in the previous review is the line “..but forget it if you want a nice place to relax with friends.” This portion of the review is clearly the most betraying, since I think we all know Vinnie84’s only friends exist in his head.

In conclusion Gaylord Indian Restaurant serves great Indian food with a staff that is high on efficiency and low on small talk. The prices are totally reasonable for the quantity and quality of food you get, and the food gets to you quickly. Also, Vinnie84 is a huge tool who cries himself to sleep.

All of this can be viewed via this link:
http://www.yourrestaurants.com.au/guide/gaylord_indian_restaurant/?count_view=no

I imagine most people would expect this blog entry to be about the WCOOP main event, seeing as It was the largest online poker event of the year. Let me sum up the entirety of the trip report for you:

Belowabove is sitting on my immediate left. We both have about 18.5 of our starting 20k, he had a few hundred more. I’m dealt 99 in the SB. Blinds 50/100

Preflop: I raise to 350, BA calls in the BB.
Flop: 6 9 J rainbow
I bet 450, BA raises to 1200, I call.
Turn: J
I check, BA bets 1750, I raise to 5800, he shoves, I call. He shows AJ.
River: 6.

There you are, WCOOP ME trip report. Riveting stuff huh? Anyway, I decided to use this blog entry as a sort of public service announcement, because hey, the more you know.

It was brought to my attention that there was a $10 charge on my credit card that showed up monthly. I had assumed it was for a Xbox live subscription, as I seem to recall perhaps creating one, but I wasn’t quite sure. However, I was completely sure if I created a paying one that it was only for a few months, and this charge had now been showing up several months longer. I took the chare name “WLI RESERVATIONREW ARDS C800 73270 CT” and plugged it into Google.

When people used to have unanswerable questions that plagued them in life, they turned to God. God’s infinite knowledge allowed for the reaching of understanding and peace. Since the creation of Google I’ve become an atheist, since Google knows everything and God’s utility has become irrelevant. And in the extremely rare occurrence that you can’t find the information and answers you seek on Google, simply turn to its cousin, Wikipedia. Knowing the web address of these two sites allows me to fulfill my potential as one of the world’s smartest men. Eat your heart out Ken Jennings.

Google instantly responded to my quandary. Turns out, the charge is part of an elaborate ‘rewards program’ scam. If you see a charge like this showing up on your credit card and want further information here’s an excellent link:
http://adam.rosi-kessel.org/weblog/the_man/webloyalty_aka_wli_reservations_is_a_scam.html

I called up the companies number and began making demands. I could give you a play by play of the conversation, OR I could ghost write it again. Yes that sounds more fun.

Upon finding the aforementioned website I became outraged and took it up as my mission to get my money back. I took the phone number from the website, fired up Skype, and dialed.

“Hello this is XXXXX with Reservation Rewards, how my help you today?”

“Hello this is George Dunst. I noticed a charge on my bank account from your company that I did not authorize that has been going for several months now. So, what’s up with this shit?”

“Oh yes, that. Well that’s our little scam. You see when you make a purchase through various companies, in this case EB Games (true part of story) we feed you some various crap where we ask for your email and don’t tell you we’ll be charging you, then just start billing without any confirmation.”

“Wow, well I certainly didn’t expect that kind of honesty. Alright, so stop it and give me my money back you lying bastards.”

“Ha, yea right. What are you going to do about it?”

“What am I gonna do about it? WHAT AM I GONNA DO ABOUT IT!? You listen to me and you listen to me good you stupid mother fucker. I was gonna play nice and just ask for my money back and go quietly into that good night, but now you’ve crossed the fucking line. Here are my demands; I want all my money back, 2 Hawaiian islands, a summer home in the Hamptons, a red Ferrari F50, and a helicopter. Not one of those lame news helicopters, it better have missiles on it!”

”And if we don’t comply?”

”Then I’ll pay for Larry The Cable Guy to come to your office and do 90 minutes of stand up.”

I heard the woman make a sort of noise on the other line that sounded like a mix of a gasp and choking. It sounded something like the noise actors make when trying to pretend their having a heart attack.

“Excuse me sir, I didn’t realize the gravity of the situation. I’ll put my supervisor on the phone immediately.”
A moment passed as I sat on hold, listening to the receiver play ‘The Girl from Ipanema”. I couldn’t recall the last time I’d lost my temper and made such wild and violent threats, but the cat was out of the bag now.

“Hello Mr. Dunst, this is XXXXXX. I understand that our company has made a massive error in offending you. I’ve got your list of demands here and want to assure you that we handle a situation like this with the utmost priority and seriousness. Do you have any preference on Hawaiian islands?”

”Just as long as there’s no lepers.”

“I see sir, but of course. Well I want to thank you for calling today and informing us of our error. Is it alright if I hang up now sir? I soiled myself when I heard about your threat and could really use a change in underwear.”

“Yea, I guess I’ll let you go… this time.”

I hung up and went back to my bench press, where I did 20 reps of 1000 pounds. Yep, I’m that badass.

So in the end Reservation Rewards agreed to cancel their subscription and refund the entirety of what they took. In these kind of situations, apparently the one phrase you need to use is “If my money is not refunded I will call my bank and charge back this item.” This sets you aside from most customers who aren’t aware that they can demand their money back and that authorization is very difficult to prove over the phone or internet.

I’ve written before how I consider people in terms of ‘realness’. That is, most people have a level of legitimacy to them. Often, players in the poker world struggle with the idea of dropping out of school or quitting their job, giving up that legitimacy. I’ve got less than a year left of credits to finish my theatre degree at University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. I’d like to get it done eventually, if only for the sake of having finished it, since the courses aren’t hard and I’ve already put 4 years into school. However, even after I finish it I see the chances of my going out and getting a job of some kind, be it in drama or otherwise, to be less than 0%.

I’ve been talking to a lot of young players lately, and have been fairly surprised to find that most of them don’t see themselves “just playing poker forever.” I always find this fairly surprising since, to me, poker is the sweetest occupation ever. It’s the ultimate form of capitalism with the invisible hand driving you to success which nobody else gets to share in or mooch off of. I work for nobody and nobody works for me. I make plenty of money, and the harder I work the more I get back, with some interference from variance. Never will I be subject to being an undervalued employee, underpaid, or ordered around by a useless or moronic boss.

I had five jobs or six jobs back in high school before the gambling bug bit me. At first I was a peanut guy at college football games, then a subway employee, then shoe salesman, then dishwasher, then host at a restaurant. I also did some judging work for my high school forensics team my freshman year of college but that doesn’t really count as a job per say. What I learned mostly from my stints in various occupations is that I hate working for other people and having some jackass who’s having a bad day decide to take it out on his employees because he spilled coffee on himself on the way to work or whatever bullshit excuse he or she wanted to be a dick that day.

A couple of those jobs weren’t so bad. What mostly determined whether it was miserable or tolerable ended up being the people I worked with. For example, the hardest and dirtiest work was at Subway and being a dishwasher at a restaurant called Morels, but most of the time the bosses were fair and my coworkers were fun so I didn’t hate it. Meanwhile, my fairly easy work as a shoe salesman at Finish Line and host at Damon’s entirely ruined my real world work ethic and willingness to take orders. Finish Line began my disillusionment with the working world and Damons managed to destroy it completely. When I found poker and gambling right after being fired from Damons suddenly something clicked in me; If I work really hard at this I can make enough money to never have to listen to anyone else’s bullshit ever again.

Most my current contemporaries are extremely smart and naturally gifted guys. Whenever I ask one what University they go to it always ends up coming back as something very prestigious with a major like ‘math’ or ‘statistics’ or ‘advanced super human computer in your brain statistical and analytical abilities’. Stuff like that. These guys seem to get very good at poker pretty quick, often at a very young age. Meanwhile, I’ve been playing for almost five years. At the start I was fed so much misinformation from books and guys who didn’t know what they were doing that my ability as a player was basically at a standstill for years. Eventually I found 2+2 and the elitist intellectual assholes that frequent the site eventually set me straight a little at a time about what I’m doing wrong. However, I have one huge advantage over the vast majority of the wunderkinds; I work so much harder. That’s not to say that any of them are lazy or undeserving, but the thought of working a real job again is enough motivation to keep me constantly seeking ways to improve with an obsession usually seen only in religious zealots.

The dream of course, is eventually hitting it so big that thinking about this all becomes irrelevant; the previously mentioned ‘big score.’ While many of my friends have hit that big score and handled it with subtlety and class, choosing to side step the spot light I just can’t see myself doing the same. I imagine if I did something like final table a major live event for some absurd sum of money I’d end up holding a huge “Celebrate Tony Making Bill Gates Look Poor” party where I wear a dollar bill suit and top hat smoking 3 cigars at once, standing at the door shouting at everyone to congratulate me before they are allowed entry. Then I’ll spend the rest of the party sitting in a thrown being carried around by four enormous body guards while I throw silver dollars at everyone and guzzle several magnums of champagne.

In my opinion, the sweetest part about hitting it big on the live scene is the potential for selling out. Signing a sponsorship deal with a poker site ought to be the goal of every clever minded poker player, as you get paid to do what you’d be doing anyway. Unfortunately, thanks to the hypocritical, sodomite legislators down in D.C., sponsorship for most US players is, at the moment, the impossible dream. However, anti-UIGEA legislation is gaining heavy ground and the idiot God Boys of the right wing have managed to back themselves into a corner against the WTO. An excellent article from Newsweek on this issue can be read here:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20790111/site/newsweek/

The basic idea is that the US has lost in the WTO case over online gambling vs Antigua, and if they don’t comply by allowing online gaming back into the market then Antigua and numerous other countries that have faced losses can begin producing American entertainment and technology products at a fraction of the cost and legally sell them around the world. Hollywood and Silicon Valley are having a seizure at the thought of their products plummeting in value and are in the process of dispensing blood thirsty lobbyists to D.C. to hold a gun to various congressmen’s families. Good to see the system still works and that money still does truly make the world go round.

If all goes has hoped and the UIGEA is nothing but a memory within the next couple years, then the potential for sponsorship from a website for a young and upcoming US player increases enormously. People are slowly realizing that many of the established pros are either terrible at poker, terrible people, or both. That’s not to say there aren’t a few diamonds in the rough, guys with real talent who don’t explode at the misfortune of a three outer a la Phil Gordon. However, watching a few interviews from poker tournaments around the world makes it pretty clear that the majority of players tend to be either to dry or to eccentric for real marketability, though screaming and dancing every time you win a pot during the WSOP might be a good place to start.

I still find it kind of unfathomable that blogging exists. It seems unreal to me that when you put down in words the little bland intricacies of your life someone will glance over and say “now here’s someone I shall live vicariously through! Happy days!” Well, they probably won’t actually say ‘Happy Days!’, not out loud at least, but they just might think it. Fuckers.

It’s unfathomable in the same way that ‘The Sim’s’ video game became widely popular. I can just see that sales pitch in the development department at EA games;

“Okay guys I have the sickest idea ever for a video game. You see, you can create a person, and control their life. Like, you get to order them to do all the mundane little things like do the dishes, take out the trash, and go to work. It’ll be just like a person’s actual cripplingly monotonous life, but miniaturized!”

Odds are the company debated firing him but alternatively decided to shoot him and dump him in a river instead, hoping to reduce the overall level of human stupidity. Then somehow, the game got developed anyway, perhaps some animator got high on ecstasy and didn’t realize what he was doing. And then the game blew up and everyone loved it and they made 87 sequels and all the guys at EA games became as rich as Bill Gates and spent out their days living on a resort having sex with other peoples wives while on vacation. Pretty sure I read that somewhere.

So instead of everyone going out and living their lives in order to accomplish what they wanted to get done, they just had Sim John Jerkoff take care of it for them. John got the fancy house, the cool job, the big TV, and 8 girlfriends. You got a few hours mild amusement, a 6 dollar an hour job, and a C drive overstuffed with pornography. Or maybe I’m just annoyed for the way I spent my teenage years.

But I digress. Blogging seems weird to me because the people reading it probably have better things to do, and most bloggers can’t write. Much like the more I play poker the more I realize I suck at poker, the more I read and write the more I realize I totally fucking suck at writing, and that’s annoying. I’ve been reading Oscar Wilde lately, and that guy makes my writing look like it was created by a drunken lemur, though without all the blatant homosexual subtext.

About 95% of the time I write my blog or read someone else’s I just sit back and think “Jesus Christ that is so disgustingly self involved.” That’s the hard part. How do you write anything in this format without it coming off self absorbed and totally lame? I mean it’s supposed to be about you, so it seems unavoidable. Even harder is writing it with some wit and flair so when you look back on it you don’t. It’s easier when I’m playing live and can simply write up exactly what happened that day on the poker table then spice it up with a few curse words and insults. However, given that I won’t be playing any live poker for at least another month I’m forced to find other methods of creation.

Which is another thing annoying me. There is an absolute ton of good live poker going on right now in some great locations; London, Barcelona, Turks and Caicos, Aruba, Korea, all are having a tournament this month or next. Unfortunately, due Australia being in the ass end of the world, going to one of these tournaments is an enormous hassle. To get to any of these places, for one person (which would never happen due to girlfriend’s neediness) would be roughly $2000 in airfares, $1-2000 in hotel, and $1000 in additional expenses. Factor in an enormous jet lag and the fact that you have to spend 24 hours in planes and airports twice in ~two weeks and the prospect of doing one of these is suicide inducing. How I envy those in the states who can take a four hour flight to the Caribbean, or nine to Europe.

The possible Pacific region poker is looking less and less likely. All I’ve received about the Macau tournament is an email from a friend who doesn’t work in the industry, but there has been no official announcement of anything. Betfair was supposedly having their 5k tournament in Singapore again, and while a friend has said that the organizer from last year has confirmed it will happen, again there is no official announcement anywhere. Both these events were supposed to be in November, and as it is now late September I don’t like the chances of either happening. The Poker News Cup is coming up in October down the street here in Melbourne at Crown, but there’s really only two moderately interesting events involved, with the highest buy in $2500 AUD outside the “Bad Boys of Poker” event, which is a 10k AUD buy in ego tournament, where ten or twenty guys will put up the money to play a field with next to zero value. Sure a bunch of them won’t actually be good at poker, but none of them will really suck in the way your average tournament player will suck and anyone who really thought about why they were playing it could likely recognize it was simply for publicity or bragging rights sake.

After that I might go over to Adelaide in November since such little else is going on, and of course there’s the AAPT in Sydney in December. All of this in preparation for the Aussie Millions, which outside the WSOP is the most important series of tournaments or myself. Either way I need to play something to play soon because I’m running out of material here.

In the mean time I keep running like absolute god online except for Stars. I seem to make roughly two final tables a day and when I do it normally ends in a heads up match. I’ve got another four days to win a tournament on either Stars, UB, or Absolute (lol, I’m having fun picturing the seizure Adanthar is having over Absolute) in order to get another triple crown, and if I keep winning every time I get it in behind that’ll likely happen. Unfortunately, I don’t really have anything interesting to write about, perhaps I’ll do something content heavy like the Nath review, but that seems kind of dull.

Perhaps I’ll do a WCOOP trip report and just break down the hands, but god that sounds so disgustingly boring. The WCOOP is of course a huge fucking annoyance in general because the events start at either 5 or 6:30am. I’ve just woken up now for the $530 PL Hold’em event, and even though I set my alarm for 6:25am, I awoke at 6:55am and realized the alarm must have gone off but I turned it off subconsciously and returned to sleep. I’m also feeling fairly sick because my girlfriends extended family had a to-do of some kind last night until 10pm way out in some suburb and my presence was required, despite nobody really speaking English. So obviously I didn’t get to sleep till 11pm and I feel like shit.

We ate out at an authentic Shanghaiese restaurant. In on evening I discovered I am without a doubt the most brilliant Shanhaiese cook on the planet because I know the recipe for every dish on the menu. I’ll even give you the secret:

Step 1: Select any meat you choose. Actual choice is irrelevant cause we’re about to fuck it up beyond recognition.
Step 2: Deep fry the living shit out of said meat.
Step 3: Choose any random selection of sauces. Pour roughly four bottles of selected sauce onto meat.
Step 4: Deep fry the living shit out of the sauce covered meat again. Throw some vegetables in there.
Step 5: Fin.

There you go, you can now go open your very own Shanghaiese restaurant and have a competition with Nobu as to which is worse. As for me, I’ve got donkaments to play. Hopefully something blog worthy happens.

Like most poker players I talk a fair bit of shit about my opponents. Some forums in 2+2 simply exist to spew hate, and the MTT world in general tends to breed a lot of insults. I imagine this is because peoples results and winnings are public, and the undeserving can win a ton of money in one lucky day while the superior players can go months or years without a truly big score. Some dickhead who wins the Sunday Million last week or last month or whatever, has made more in poker in one day than I have all year. That’s an annoying thing to think about.

Deserve is a difficult concept to grasp in poker, and in the end, you should probably just throw the idea away completely. It doesn’t matter how much you play, how hard you study, how many questions you ask, or who coaches you, in the end you are variances bitch, to abuse and toy with as it pleases.

Lilholdem, Pearljammer, Belowabove, GB2005, Phatcat, JohnnyBax, Tmay420, Lordhutty, Sheets, JOEYTHEB, Scarface_79, Gank, Wachovia, Scott Fischman, Comeonphish, I’ve talked trash about all of them at some time or another.

If forced to present a case in front of a jury, I doubt I could prove more than two or three on that list actually suck at poker, the rest were likely the result of watching them play one hand badly then deciding “well he must suck” and talking shit forever after. Then, somewhere in the last few days, it occurred to me; where the fuck do I get off? If there’s one thing probably everyone on that list has in common, it’s that they’ve likely made more money from poker than I have.

Seriously, if there was one player who I could talk endlessly about how bad he is, it’d be me. I fuck up so many times on a daily basis, often in important situations, that it’s unfathomable.

Recent examples? Heads up in the Tilt 30 rebuys yesterday the SB open shoved and I called off 15 BB’s with A3o vs a villain who had yet to open shove on me. Oh really? A3o, I wonder how that does against his range. Against his probable range I’m about 36%, if you widen it a few percentage points higher. Wow, well fucking done Bond18, you managed to play concise poker all the way to the end just so you could blow it at the most important EV situation.

Another one? How about getting deep in the stars 100 rebuys and with 19 left (18 paying) 3 betting an utg raiser with 55 on the button with both of us having top 5 stacks. Better yet, after UTG calls I shove a 368 flop about 1.3X over pot. I am of course snap called by 66 and bubble when I should have very likely final tabled. For as much as I bitch about running bad in the 100 rebuys if I’m going to play like that then it’s totally deserved.

Or how about calling down Apestyles on 3 streets with an A high board with 2nd pair in the heads up match for the 18k package to Australia? Three fucking streets of value I gave him with a 9.

Yet my favorite in recent examples of immense stupidity came on Sunday, when very deep in a large Stars 109 FO I check called off 60% of my stack on a JT545 board with A8 no draw and was promptly destroyed by KJ. Oh right, because every god damn donk on Stars is capable of firing two rounds and over half their stack on K high. Even if I catch him with a missed flush draw like A2-A8s I’m calling for a chop. Jesus Christ.

As a result of so much bad play recently, I’ve been spending more time reviewing and trying to slowly think through situations. I’m also trying to watch players a lot more closely, so instead of just deciding instantly that they must suck I actually know how they play.

However, results have been encouraging. In the last week I’ve probably won in the area of at least $25,000, maybe more after today. There’s been so many final tables it’s all starting to blend together. What I really need to do now is final table something meaningful though, as up to this point my biggest scores since getting back have been 12k from 2nd in the full tilt nightly $150, and 12k from winning the Bodog winners choice. Surely nice sums of money, but I’ve yet to really hit it huge since coming back to Melbourne. Part of that is the result of never really being up at the right hours on Sunday to play most of the majors, and part of that is never playing the $100 rebuys anymore and constantly failing in the Stars nightly $150. I came close in the Stars $1k last week Tuesday, but in the end had KK lose to AJo AIPF to finish a disappointing 9th.

When I won the Bodog package I was concerned I’d be forced to use the package as per their rules and conditions, but instead they funded the 12k into the account as I imagine third party registration is just too much trouble post UIGEA. So at least I have way more than enough bankroll to blow on my god awful play.