The Illegal Immigrants of Poker

A Poker League is a microcosm of the world.

We have our doctors and lawyers.  They are, well, doctors and lawyers.  We have blue collars workers, white collar workers, and all types.  All are welcome.  It is a mix of society in our league.

We have our Illegal Immigrants too.  They don't distinguish themselves by being from another country.  They don't distinguish themselves by being part of a different race of people.  They are just the influx of poker players coming to us from another league.  A poker league whose economy has failed.  These displaced huddled masses of poker players want to come into our territory and use up our resources, since their actions and their leagues management's actions have bankrupted their poker economy and they have nowhere to go.

I'll let them in on a little secret.  The restaurants don't host poker games to find out who is the poker champ, they host games to sell beer and liquor.  If the poker players don't make purchases, then the economy collapses and there is no more poker.  As Ezra Pound proffers in his various writings, man's motivation is pecuniary in nature.

Don't let it happen to you.  Don't hurry up and eat dinner so you can get to the poker tournament, come to the venue to have dinner when you play poker. Buy a few drinks, but drink responsibly.  Come with someone else so someone can drive you home if need be.  And remember to tip your waitress.  If you are there for six hours, don't leave a dollar.  Make it worth her while to serve you.

And don't let your poker venue's economy collapse.

Tethering with Bluetooth

Many of the venues I play bar poker in have free WiFi, but some don't.  When I'm out of the game I like to surf the web, or while running a tournament update the points or get an online email going.  Without access to Wifi, I can't do it.

Tethering is the process of connecting your cellphone to your laptop to allow for internet access from the phone.  It's a way of hacking into things for some people.  For others, it's a seldom known feature of the phone.  For instance, on Boost mobile unlimited internet access is included in the flat monthly fee of $50.  Once tethered, you can have unlimited internet for your laptop.

I should say that with Boost, it's an IDEN network and you have a theoretical limit of 19.2K for speed.  Cable modems tend to be around 3,000K.  It won't let you stream movies, but will allow for checking email in Eudora or running a telent session with PuTTY  I will of course have to give online poker a go with it..

All I had to do was find the correct driver file and install it on my laptop.  Or, maybe not.  Apparently tethering is a more or less built in feature of a bluetooth adapter for your laptop.  So I went to Best Buy and bought a Bluetooth adpater.  For five dollars more I got the low profile version.  Around $35.

Arriving a bit early for Thursday lunch at Tommy's Place, I eagerly opened my package and why was I surprised to find a CD with the driver.  My netbook computer does not have a CD reader in it.  So after lunch I went to the RocketFish website and downloaded the install package.  A few minutes later I was connected to the internet via my cellphone.  It works.

I'm looking forward to trying it out when I am at a venue without WiFi.  Or maybe when I'm in Atlantic City and don't want to pay $12/day for Internet access.

Top Ten Ways to Get Your Points Correct

I really hate to write reactionary items, but here it is.  Letterman's Top Ten List of How to keep your Poker Points from being wrong.

1. If you have a name like "David" sometimes sign in as "Dave" other times like "David".
2. If your last name has lots of vowels and does not roll off the toungue well, scribble your name and make it hard for the data entry person to read.  They don't need to use all the vowels.
3. On the new member registration form, sign up with a last name of just "R", then sign out using the last name of "Arugula" or "Tavern". With so many different names, you are sure to get your points straight.
4. Sign up on the new member registration form with what is on your birth certificate despite that no one, not even your Mother, has ever called you that  Then sign out at the Winners table with the name "Bubba".
5. Who needs a member number anyway?
6. Name your children the same name as yourself.  And make sure it was your Dad who made you, the older one, Junior.
7. Don't use your last name when you sign in and out.  How many Roberts or Johns or Steves can there be?
8. Don't tell Robert you think your points are wrong.  Just post public messages about what a bad job he does.
9. When you realize the quarter has reset the points, pretend you knew it all along.
10. Don't use your member number.  Whenever you complain about your points being wrong and Robert re-sends you your number number, just ignore him.