I Might Be a Tourney Reporter

Just sent the WPT Mandalay Bay final table tourney article to PokerWorks. It's not horrible, but it's no Hemingway for that matter. Anyone with feedback overall would be greatly appreciated.

Not a very good day Thursday in the productivity department. I called the VP/GM of one of my clients that we're doing marketing for. They are pretty abysmal overall, never execute very well, don't pay for a retainer which really means I'm limited in my involvement. I'm going around my day-to-day contact to the VP/GM and asked for a private meeting next week with him. I may go around him as well and request the same from the CEO the next day, I'm not sure. I'm really torn on whether to fire them or try and get fired by them. The revenue model is great with these sorts of relationships, alot of free money when you print things. It is a constant distraction, and I don't like doing things poorly.

Back to the productivity front, it just hasn't been that great a week in getting things done. I have one solid new lead that I've worked that could turn into something, and I'm reviving another lead with a phone call in a few weeks. The lead time on finding and closing business is fairly long, so I need a big funnel of lots of leads that turn into good at bats that turn into business. My plans for the day just haven't been executed yet, wasting lots of time noodling about poker or reading blogs. Too much self pity and general malaise (if that's the right word). I need to have a better week next week.

I'd like to see if I can turn my talents to the poker world, and my exploration of the questions is a first step toward that. There is so much bad marketing, customer service, and general management in both the online and b&m worlds. As a reminder, the questions I'll be looking at are as follows:

• What is the state of poker on a ten point scale, with 10 being thriving and 1 being in decay?
• What are the greatest unmet needs of the poker playing community?
• What are the greatest challenges confronting poker businesses in the next three years?
• What are the keys to long-term growth and sustainability in the poker economy?

Thanks to FJ Delgado and pokerpeaker for your initial thoughts, as well as wes, sloejack, floppyjt, and mook for your thoughts on table hopping. Would be interested in other folks thoughts as well.

The World Cup is upon us. I picked my teams for Matt Matros' pool (you had to pick one team in each group which reflected two #1 seeds, two #2's, etc.). I ended up with Brazil and Germany as the #1's, The Netherlands and Ukraine as #2's, USA and South Korea as #3's, and Angola and Trinidad and Tobago (two countries, not three) as my #4's. I am confident that I don't know what I was doing as I had to basically move away from my stronger picks to deal with risk mitigation. I won't try and convert anyone to the fervor, but I would suggest this to anyone who is a sports nut but just doesn't get soccer: find a place on one of these weekend mornings, get some grub and brews in front of you, then sit back and watch the big screens with a bunch of fanatical Mexicans or Brits or Dutch or Germans or Argentines. Money-back guarantee that you'll at least appreciate it more.

Yahoo is toast, so my new email is csquard@gmail.com. I'm spam free on day 1 with only two emails from Google and two from Stars. Ping me with shoutouts and stuff to stuff into my poker folder.

Bankroll is at $6430. Not treading water per se, just not playing very much. I really miss playing live and need to figure out how to get out to Vegas soon. Will work a plan in the next week to do that. Sweetie is eating up weekends: The Little Guy is getting infant baptized this weekend (normally they're three or four months old, so hopefully this two-year old doesn't say any new words like DIE-DIE-DIE that his brothers are teaching him), to the mountains of G-Vegas for Father's Day (maybe sneaking in a game one night?), back there for the weekend before and after the 4th. I'm fine with them staying up there, and it would be great to work from there, but there is no cell coverage and no wi-fi, so I have to drive to Travelers Rest north of G-Vegas or go to Furman to get a signal. Not a healthy environment.

I'll leave you with Friday's Recipe, this one is a classic from my childhood, Bear Soup. You make Bear Soup whenever you get sick, as it was the soup that Goldilocks stole in the forest when the Three Bears were out and about. Peel three-four potatoes and slice them into small cubes. Slice an onion the same (OK, do the onion first), boil the onions in water, then add the potatoes. After fifteen minutes, drain some of the water then add two cans of tomato sauce and a bit of bacon grease (optional). Pepper as liberally as you like and you can add a third can of tomato sauce if you like. Simmer and stir for fifteen-twenty minutes (basically make sure the potatoes are good and soft). Keep adding pepper if you like, and you can add some salt somewhere in there although I don't put salt in anything. When you serve this piping hot, there is a three-step process to eating it: first, dip a saltine in and eat the cracker (too hot), then put a spoonful on a cracker and eat that (ALERT: risk of burning the roof of your mouth, so be careful there), once it's good and just warm then eat away. You can crumble saltines in at that point if you like. I make Sweetie make this whenever I'm sick.

Have a good weekend at the tables. I'll try and get some play in somewhere in the midst of watching World Cup and getting the Little Guy's head sprinkled.

ADDENDUM: Really funny video from a Brit series Extras with Patrick Stewart, courtesy of Wil Wheaton. Really, really funny.