I did it.

For the first time in two months, I played poker. 150 hands in total - wouldn't want to overdo it the first session I play after my break. So a short session, a buy-in of profit, and maybe I'll do it again soon. I suppose it's premature to claim that my break is over.

What I have done in the past three months when I haven't blogged (and hardly posted on forums) and haven't spent an hour a day on poker? I've read books. I've worked - oh boy, have I worked - I've hung out with friends and family and I've watched a decent chunk of TV. Oh, and I've played some video games.

Anyway. I'm back, I guess. We'll see how this pans out.

Progressive Tipping

I think it's customary to write trip reports on poker blogs, especially when your travel takes you to Las Vegas, the Mecca of gambling. And I'm sorry if I've let you down. Rest assured that the lack of stories does not in any way correspond to an uneventful time. I had a great time, and a lot of fun things happened, but today I'll just focus on one of them: My experiment with progressively increasing tips for the poker room cocktail waitress.

The idea is simple: I tip the standard $1 the first time she brings me a beer. Then I up it to $2 the second time around, etc. I didn't explicitly mention my intention of doing it - hell, I didn't even have the intention of doing it until I was already well under way. Besides, cocktail waitresses seem to have a very sophisticated sense of tip, so I feel confident that most of them will pick up on it without having to be told.

The end result of this was that as the session went on, my beers became more and more frequent, which is hardly surprising. But here's the kicker: About 90 minutes into the session, my waitress came by our table and went up to me and offered me a last Corona (my beverage of choice this evening). I say "offered" and "last" because

1) I hadn't ordered it (I was still working on the last one she had brought me), and
2) she was getting off her shift but wanted to make sure I wasn't without a drink in the time it would take the next waitress to start her shift and get to our table.

So: She had ended her shift and brought me a beer (that I had not - yet - requested) on her way out. Out of kindness and generosity and care for customers? Maybe. But I bet she also wanted the $7 tip that was coming. So that was funny in its own right.

What made it even more fun is that BelgoSuisse (from Cardschat) who was sitting two seats to my right had tried to order a beer from her just a few minutes prior to her bringing me this Corona and had been told "no, sorry, I'm getting off my shift now." Had I known about this exchange as she brought me the last drink, I would have tipped her $20, because that's awesome.

Bloom

Yesterday, we had our first home-grown salad: Tomatoes and lettuce, with a sprinkle of (our own) parsley and then cheating a bit by adding some store-bought olive oil and garlic. I can honestly say that I'm not sure I ever want to buy tomatoes again. If you've never had home-grown tomatoes, you don't know what tomatoes taste like. I kid you not. There's just such a huge difference in sweetness, texture and aroma that it's not comparable. The best analogy I can come up with is comparing Heinz Ketchup to a really old bottle of generic ketchup mixed with two parts of water.

There's another thing that's in bloom and maturing wonderfully, and that's Sean Gibson's career as a poker reporter. Sean and I go back a few years from CardsChat, but I got to meet him last year in Las Vegas, when he was trying to break into the world of poker reporting. He had some various writing jobs, among others for PokerTableRatings, but at the time (if I'm not mistaken) his future was pretty much up in the air. I got the feeling that he wasn't sure if it was going to work out or not.

Fast forward one year, and we have who I can honestly say I consider the best on-camera poker reporter in the world right now. To combine the two traits of actually knowing what he's talking about and at the same time keeping the interviews light-hearted and being able to connect with the interviewee and make them feel relaxed is, I think, unprecedented in this (admittedly so far relatively small) field. Privately, he seems to have changed as well; more relaxed, much more confident and overall having that look of someone who's really, really enjoying his job and his life, and that's just awesome.

Sean, my friend, you're the home-grown tomato of poker reporting. Keep it up.

Next Stop: Vegas

Heading out tomorrow morning, and should be at the Venetian around 11:30, by my calculations. Taking only a carry-on and checking in online cuts the airport time down to a minimum, which. Is. Awesome. I really don't like airports. To me, they're buildings with thousands of people who can't wait to get out of there, which makes the overall mood in the place pretty damp. Whatever, I'll have my book. Or books, rather, seeing as there's three of them in my bag.

Once in Las Vegas, I'll be meeting up with Debi almost immediately for lunch. After that, I have exactly zero plans - and that's how I like it. Will I play poker? Who knows. Maybe. I'm bringing some change just in case, but I don't expect I'll be spending a ton of time at the tables, unless for hanging out with friends who want to play.

I'm excited about going there, I'm excited about coming back and doing a truckload of shopping, I'm excited about going to my parents after that to get back to my cats, and I'm excited about going home a few days later still. Once home, I'm excited about going back to work for the first time in 6 months, and I'm excited about grabbing my poker career by the horns and turning this year into my best one yet. I'm overall very excited about what's happening in my life right now.

Did I just jinx it? Let's hope not.

Oil.

Two random observations:

1. I'm under the impression that oil is used for a lot of very specific things, among them making plastic. It's a really neat substance. I don't know how much of the "stuff" we have today in which oil is a necessary ingredient, but I'm guessing it's a whole lot.

2. Also, oil is probably one of the most rare substances in the universe, based on the fact that it's what happens to organic lifeforms after millions of years. We don't know any other planet on which it exists.

And we're burning this stuff?

Bwin Blows (and blost a bcustomer)

There's a ton of stuff I could put into this post, including quoting all the emails that have been sent back and forth, but I'll keep it as short and to-the-point as I can (which is still pretty long).

Basic timeline:

Wednesday, June 9th: I open an account at BWin. I deposit $5,000 (their maximum deposit), which is probably a lot for most people, but not exactly an outlandish amount if you're planning on playing the midstakes. I play about 150 hands or so, figuring out how their software works, configuring Holdem Manager, yadda yadda. Some quirks I'm not happy about, some features I wished they had done differently, but game selection looks pretty good and there are no deal-breakers in how their software is built. I'm reasonably content.

Thursday, June 10th. I log a more substantial session, something like 600 hands, trying out what multitabling is like and how I can tile the windows and stuff like that. I win a buy-in or so.

I don't log in on Friday.

Saturday morning, I can't login. Says my password is incorrect. I thought that perhaps I didn't remember it right (I obviously use new and different passwords for all sites, and they're random strings of numbers and characters; easy for my memory to play tricks on me), but I go through their password recovery procedure and have a new password emailed to me. Try to log in. It won't work.

"What the hell?"

So I go back to their webpage and try to log in there - maybe there's something wrong with my client? Success! I can log in on their webpage! Except now there's a little information box that tells me that my account has been closed.

What the hell?

I browse around. No information available as to why my account has been closed. I check my GMail spamfolder; no email from Bwin. I email them, but when I hadn't gotten a reply in the afternoon, I called them. Turns out that their security team have closed my account because they were doing a "routine review." In order to re-open the account, I have to supply them with the customary passport/utility bill combo.

Do you see the problem here?

The problem, of course, is that they closed the account without notifying me. Without telling me why they did it, or for that matter that they HAD done it, and I had to contact them in order to find out what they needed from me. I think that's outrageous. Blocking my $5k without telling me why is not a good way to handle a new customer.

Now, if this was the matter of just an individual security team member accidently forgetting to send an email to me, I would have shrugged it off. On the contrary, though, I was informed (both over the phone and in writing) that this is in fact standard procedure: They do NOT inform customers when they close their accounts. I couldn't believe what I was hearing. What kind of weird rationale could possibly be behind this? I can't think of any. And trust me, I've tried to think of one.

Either way, within minutes of having been told that I need to upload a photocopy of my passport and a utility bill, it's done, and a few days later (Tuesday) I get an email saying that they've re-opened my account. Here's where things really turned sour. Basically, my confidence in how they handle their customers was already shot to hell, and so I went ahead and ran the "cash-out test". That's to say that I wanted to find out if they were the kind of company that would put up a fuss in order to prevent people from withdrawing.

And they were.

"It has come to our notice that you requested a pay-out before having wagered the total amount you paid into your account on our website. Please note that pay-outs generally can be made only from obtained winnings"

At this point, I asked for a supervisor to call me. I was called back a few minutes later, and was told that this rule (about "waging the total amount I paid into my account") was stated in their Terms and Conditions. I told her that it wasn't. She told me that she was certain that it was. I told her that she could keep repeating that all she wanted, and while probably almost no one ever reads the T&C for these things, I'm that one pesky guy who does (my mom is a lawyer and has taught me well) and I then proceeded to bring up their Terms and Conditions and started reading them to her over the phone. After a minute or so, she told me that I didn't have to read all of it to her. So then we were at an impasse: She claimed that there was a rule that was "clearly stated" (her words) in a text where this rule was nowhere to be seen.

She promised, however, to email me a link to the rule in question. Turns out that it was in the FAQ, not in their T&C (quite a difference, if you ask me), and its wording is:

"- If you request the withdrawal of the amounts you paid into your account instead of using them to participate in our broad line-up of services, bwin is entitled to cancel such requests instead of paying out the money as requested. "

I repeat, emphatically, that their T&C does not state anything of the kind. This information was available in their FAQ under the heading of "Why Is My Cashout Not Processed?" or something of that nature. I think it's fair to require customers to read the terms before depositing. I don't think it's reasonable to require them to read through the entire FAQ as well.

--

At this point, quite a few more angry emails (some of them less-than-totally-polite from them as well) ensued, but I did finally get my money back. It's impossible to say exactly what caused them to change their mind, but I'm betting that me informing them that they pay to advertise on my blog might have had something to do with it. I assume they don't want bad press in a blog they pay to advertise on. And yet, here this post is. Why? I got my money back, at last, possibly specifically in order to avoid this post being written - is this me being vengeful and petty?

Actually, no. I'm not above being vengeful and petty, but this post was written because of a very specific suggestion of mine that was summarily dismissed: Namely that they change their Terms and Conditions to reflect the policy that they enforced on me. If they have a rule in place that you have to wager a certain amount before being allowed to cash out, they should really state that. That's all I asked. Update your T&C. I have to wager $5,000 in order to cash-out - how much of it had I wagered when I requested the cashout? I don't know. It doesn't say anywhere. The supervisor lady on the phone couldn't find out either, she had to send a request to a separate department to find out and they were going to get back to me about that (they never did).

So, Bwin:

For closing my account without notifying me, for blocking my cashout in reference to something in the T&C that isn't there, and for ignoring a simple request to update your T&C to reflect what is apparently a well-known rule internally, you officially suck.

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I'm back at Party Poker. The contrast was made very explicit when I emailed Party and asked if I perhaps would be allowed to come and hang out for a little while in their VIP lounge at the Rio when I arrive in Vegas, and they explained that although that lounge was intended exclusively for those playing in the WSOP, all I had to do was ask for Sinead when I arrived; she had been informed that I might be showing up, and it wouldn't be a problem.

Thanks, guys.

Back in the saddle

After a few weeks of licking my wounds and contemplating what I want out of poker, I'm back in the saddle with a great deal of enthusiasm and am enjoying the game again. Unfortunately, I only have a few more days of enjoying it before I go away for three or four weeks, during which time I probably won't be able to play at all - at least not online. I might play a little during my brief stop in Vegas, but my online accounts will lie dormant.

But that's a fairly convenient problem to have.

I'm trying to hook up with Taylor to talk over hands as often as we can - although time zones, babies and life in general makes it a little tricky to find an hour of the day when we're both available. Still, we chatted for 90 minutes yesterday and some of the stuff we talked about will be a pretty major step forward if I can just incorporate it properly. I might save a few of the hands we talk about and post them here along with a brief summary of the our discussion.

On top of that, I'm working diligently on watching (and learning from) DC videos. In terms of mid-stakes content, they're a few notches above any other site I've tried out. Learning what I've yet to learn is a huge part of what's making me enthusiastic; if poker is reduced to just grinding out money, I'd... I don't know if I'd quit, but a very large part of the appeal of the game would be gone for me.

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Pet-peeve time! Note to the world: Chimpanzees do not have tails.

That is all.