One of the legends of journalism has it that the life of a special correspondent is particularly tough, and those who undergo, enjoy, and suffer from that life, as I do, tend to stress the message.
In these opening years of the 21st century, the airplane is our means of transport and the laptop is our office, just as it was in the closing years of the 20th century.
The writer of these lines is shunted around like a suitcase in pursuit of poker action. It has been that way for four years, from the
Poker Million to the
Caribbean Cruise, from the
Barcelona EPT to the
Helsinki Freezeout.
Because these days still have 24 hours in them, and yet are getting shorter all the time, we have to pull extra minutes out of the hat. The aircraft has therefore almost become an editorial office.
So many hours are spent up there in that great travelling dove - which sooner or often later, depending on the airline you use, will always get you to your destination - that you end up doing nearly everything on the plane.
If you need to eat, you eat. If you need to sleep, you sleep, and if you need to write … you write.
That is invariably done to the despair of your neighbour, who sees his personal space vanish amidst your elbows, your papers, and the laptop itself.
When he sees, however, that you are not playing solitaire but writing a tournament report from a poker event, he starts to take an interest and insists on sharing all of his Christmastime poker stories from the age of 12 to the present day.
Just how would he react to the large sums of money that float from country to country in microseconds across cyberspace at the high-stakes online poker tables? If only you could get a connection at 38,000 feet, you would know.
Thankfully, at this point, the passenger seated directly in front of you invariably drops back his seat and, whilst you are left with a mouthful of laptop screen, you have an excuse to log off and pretend you are now sleeping.
Recently the big airplane took me to the little runway that resides in Gibraltar, home to dozens of online gaming, sportsbook, and poker sites, but most were in a state of shock following the unexpected U.S. legislation outlawing deposits from American citizens.
As a result, £2.2 billion was wiped off the value of two such companies overnight.
Who knows if the limited clientele at mournful local bars were jesting when they spoke of executives who held share options and were planning early retirement a day earlier and were now taking their children out of private school and returning their Lexuses to the dealership.
It is paradoxical that the "land of the free and home of the brave," which promises "liberty and justice for all" can undemocratically initiate such restrictions on poker players. But, when they have been introduced because of the threat to "homeland security" and tagged on to a bill covering "port security," it may make some sense.
"We're going to protect our ports. We're going to defend this homeland, and we're going to win this war on terror," President Bush said when signing the bill.
It certainly doesn't make sense to me, but, then again, I'm still trying to figure out how a certain criminally convicted American poker player was walking around a London venue last month.
Look, he did nothing too serious - just sold drugs to an undercover policeman - but my point is, how can he enter the UK freely when a visitor to that great country cannot board a plane if he plays poker for a living? Who is the criminal here?
I digress.
Thankfully, there were no bodies seen leaping from windows as I visited the office block, which houses the "non-American" Ladbrokes International, the following day. There was only the growing collection of frustrated aspiring professional poker players who act as poker managers and customer-service agents whilst planning their big breakthrough.
Collectively, Ken, Gary, Tim, Adam, Philippa, Stuart, Paul, Mathew, Terry, Richard, Wayne, Carol, Sam, Dean, Julian, Michael, Mie, Lee, and Clodagh know a thing or two about the game.Office visit concluded, a place where, ironically, I struggle to do any work, I return to my hotel, which is the second office behind the airplane, a place where man and laptop live in harmony; they have to.
This hotel, Caleta Palace, is a little different. Here, you share your veranda with monkeys. Well, they are not monkeys; locals insist they are called Barbary apes, and it was from apes, somehow via Adam and Eve, that we evolved into man.
It's strange to think these vicious little blighters will become Millwall football supporters in a few hundred thousand years time!
Mundane? Never, but why this constant poker, planes, hotels, poker stories, planes, poker, monkeys and laptops existence?
It is good for your profile and good for your bank balance, but there is an awkwardness, a juggling act, where something, often everything, seems compromised.
A poor story, courtesy of a rushed deadline, leaks out, or you simply don't put your heart and soul into a tournament - like you should - often finding elimination a relief.
After all, I am, primarily, a poker player, and the next stop on that merry-go-round was Baden.
A taxi ride from Gibraltar to Malaga Airport reminds you of how good it is to be alive, or simply how you fear death. Two flights, first to Barcelona and then on to Vienna, confirm that Spanish pilots were once taxi drivers and you can do a hand-brake turn on a runway.
Drawn to play on day 1B of the €5,000 buy-in, potentially life-changing
EPT meant there was a day's respite with little more to do than entertain Ladbrokes' qualifier
RoninV.
I found
RoninV to be a prodigious character, although I'm respecting his wish to remain anonymous. I can safely say he was unfortunate to be eliminated from the tournament while clutching pocket kings with his chips in the centre, needing only to overcome pocket eights.
Twenty-four hours later, my jacks succumbed to pocket tens in a near identical situation. Five large wasted, although for entertainment value, this was one of the better tables I'd ever sat at, with the irrepressible Peter Hedlund heading a vociferous Scandinavian cast.
My preparation for this expensive bad beat was unconventional, to say the very least. Residing in my second home and second office, a hotel room, the carried-forward $500
LEOCOP six-seater hold'em tournament represented unfinished business.
Settled, with the minibar door ajar and within easy reach, the only English-speaking channel blurted out
Only Fools and Horses, a series rerun so many times even an Alzheimer's sufferer could recite each and every episode, the faithful laptop was fired up and we were ready to rumble without distractions.
All was fine until, bingo - Internet connection lost, both LAN and wireless. Frantically, I phoned reception, who told me not to worry, as they expected the problem to be rectified by the morning!
Rectified by the morning? I should have won this tournament and distributed the winnings around the Omaha cash tables by then. That is a regular occurrence.
Panic-stricken, with my stack surely being decimated, I dashed out of my room and out of the hotel with my battery-sapping laptop under arm, urgently seeking a wireless signal.
As the rain lashed down, I must have looked like an Englishman abroad, clad in jogging bottoms and a light T-shirt, shod in formal dress shoes.
My signal-strength indicator led me to a nearby bar, but upon entering I realised I was totally cashless. Furthermore, shaking his fists, the Austrian bar manager could not have gestured any clearer that Internet connection freeloaders were not welcome.
"Sadcorkboy" then phoned to tell me I was being blinded away at an alarming rate. The call sent me into delirium. Forgetting the intermitent weather, I came to rest seated like a beggar outside a high-street estate, which boasted unencrypted wireless connection.
Judging by the passersby, I'm guessing this is not normal behaviour in this exclusive town. One did drop a €2 coin in my direction, which went some way toward recouping my $500 buy-in, which I was never going to fully recover, considering battery loss meant reaching level eight of the competition was the best I could possibly achieve, chipped up or not.
And so, to the flight home, with sodden leaves removed from the laptop, which had almost completely dried out, it was back to work in the big office in the sky.
Roy "The Boy" Brindley is sponsored by and writes courtesy of Ladbrokespoker.com.
