back to winter

Posted on By Wil

We got home late last night, after a really bumpy and seemingly never-ending flight. Have you noticed that when you want to get home after a long trip, everything seems to take twice as long? We waited an hour to get our bags at LAX, then an additional 35 minutes for the car to pick us up. It’s a good thing I was rested and travelling with my wife, or I would have been super cranky.

I’ll have a massive trip report up as soon as I unpack and wash my clothes, and get caught up on my e-mail, bloglines, real mail, and whatever else has piled up over the last ten days (don’t worry, all the poker stuff will be at CardSquad.com, so you can read the entire trip, or just the stuff that interests you.)

lightly tapping a high-pitched drum

Posted on By Wil

From my balcony, I can see two cruise ships on the horizon, two weddings on the grounds beneath me, and the stetting sun bathing the entire scene in a golden light. The sound of waterfalls and reggae music drifts up on a light breeze, which was a fierce windstorm as recently as last night.

The white sand of the beach is dotted with washed-over footprints, and the sting rays in the pool beneath me are settling into the shallows, now in shade, where they spend their evenings.

When I landed here in Nassau, and did some interviews to promote PokerStars and the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure, I commented that even if I didn’t make the money, the "consolation prize of a week" in paradise with my wife would do quite nicely.

It turns out that I was right.

Catching up on the last few days . . .

After Anne and I slept for fourteen hours to catch up from our post-holiday and red eye flight exhaustion, we wandered around the grounds here. We ate lunch, and had our first experience with the absolutely abominable service in the restaurants here. (Rude, slow, and disinterested seems to be the standard theme, always rewarded by the mandatory 15% tip which is helpfully included in all of our bills.)

After lunch, we went down to the beach where we played Scrabble and watched people parasail, ride jet skis, and play in the surf and sand. I’ve lived all over the world, and I’ve been to some really beautiful places, but there is nothing like the beauty of the Caribbean water on a sunny day. Even when the weather was lousy, like it was yesterday, the seas still managed to look excited, rather than angry, and when the sun poked through the clouds, it shot brilliant shafts of light down that looked like something from one of those awesome 1980s oil paintings you see over your grandparents’ couch.

When the afternoon got late, and the wind kicked up, we headed back upstairs and got ready for the welcome party that PokerStars had for all the participants and staff. Before the party, I had a meeting with all the Team PokerStars members, and met 2005 WSOP Champion Joe Hachem for the first time. I didn’t think it was possible to meet a poker player who is nicer and more friendly than Greg Raymer, but Joe is just as amazing as Greg is, and just as patient and kind to legion of fans who want a piece of him. After the meeting, I picked up Anne, and we walked with Greg, Joe, Isabelle Mercier (sigh), Lee Jones, and several of the PokerStars staff over to the welcome party.

The party was held poolside on this place they call The Royal Deck, because it sits in the shadows of the luxurious Royal Towers, and there was live music, lots of food, and enough open bars to keep a bunch of rowdy poker players happy. Dan Goldman took the stage after we’d all been there about thirty minutes, and introduced all the people who worked so hard to make this tournament happen. If I recall correctly, he said something like, "To make this happen, it takes six months of planning, three months of work, and two weeks of complete panic." One of the many reasons I’m so proud of my affiliation with PokerStars is because I get to work with people like Dan and Sharon and Lee, and too many other hardworking people to count, who really care about their players. I know I’ve talked about it before, but I don’t know if I’ve written about how much it feels like a big family. I’m exceptionally lucky to be part of this company.

After the staff introductions, Dan introduced the members of Team PokerStars, minus Chris and Evelyn, who had flight issues, and after Joe made a brief speech where he said, "There are only two rules: when I raise, fold. And when I go all-in, fold." Ah, poker humor. While it lacks the subtlety of "pull my finger" jokes, it certainly makes up for it with the obscurity normally reserved for Monty Python jokes.

We all ate and drank (just water and juice for me, thanks) for a few hours, and I managed to, while completely sober, drop an entire 16 ounce cup of cranberry juice on the ground while talking with Terrance Chan and his girlfriend Jacqueline. Awesome. We also finally met Otis’ wife, Mrs. Otis, which confirmed that poker bloggers always marry up. I don’t know how we do it, but I’m glad we do. I also met a few people who were fans of my blog, my books, and my acting work, which is always cool, because I still feel out of my league at these things, and I’m always terrified that someone’s going to figure out that they actually meant to recruit a different WIl Wheaton for Team PokerStars. I resolve to accept that I deserve to be at the next thing, whatever it is, and quit doubting my abilities as a player, and my legitimacy as a member of the team.

After the party, Anne and I were still hungry, so we ate in that Cafe place again, mostly because it was close, open, and we knew there were things on the menu we liked, before we turned in early enough for me to fall asleep before midnight, wake up at 12:30, and toss and turn until 5AM. When the alarm went off at 8:45, I felt like I had gremlins gnawing on my head and spikes shoved into my back, but I drank some coffee, ate a muffin, and shook it off in time for my interviews at 10:00.

The weddings below me are in full-swing, and the sun has dropped beneath the lowest bank of slowly-drifting clouds, flecking their edges gold and painting the horizon orange and red. I’m going to take this down to the PokerStars office so I can use their Internets to post it.

Next time: The Tournament. (For those of you who can’t wait, check out Otis’ updates at The Official PokerStars Blog.)

greetings from atlantis

Posted on By Wil

Our flight to Miami was about as pleasant as a red eye can be, with the notable exception of Baron von Kicksalot, who sat behind me, and guaranteed that I didn’t sleep for more than thirty minutes at a time. I have this foggy memory of spinning around and snarling at him somewhere over the Gulf of Mexico, after which the kicking stopped, but I could have dreamed the whole thing, so don’t hold me to it.

We had a brief moment of panic during our approach, when the pilot aborted just before touch down, and raced into the sky to circle the field. While everyone on the plane wondered if we were all doomed, he told us that the runway had become obscured by fog, there was nothing to worry about, and we’d just need to make a different approach to a safer runway. As we circled Miami, I kept telling Anne, "This looks just like Vice City!" That extra time, added to the 70 minute delay we had before we left LAX, made us miss our connection to Nassau. After another, less brief moment of panic, Anne and I made it onto the very next flight as standbys (and thank gods we did, because if we’d missed it, we’d have been stranded in Miami until at least that evening, and possibly until the following morning.)

The flight to the Bahamas was amazing and nearly-perfect: the skies were clear, the water was sparkling and various shades of blue and green, and I kept feeling like I was watching a giant game of Pirates, but I spared Anne any of the talk like a pirate day lingo I’m so fond of, in favor of whistling the song from Pirates of the Caribbean. Anne is fast earning the title, "dear and patient wife."

We landed, picked up our bags, and had one of the most terrifying taxi rides, ever. We drove through downtown Nassau, which is right near the port, and was swarming with tourists from four different cruise ships. There was terrible traffic, and I learned that taxi drivers here like to do this style of driving called "speed up until your passengers are certain they are going to die in a horrible crash, then slam on the breaks inches before you hit the car in front of you." There is another style of driving they have here called, "change lanes without signaling or looking and honk the horn, man!" Our driver was a master of both.

We arrived at the hotel thirty or so harrowing minutes later, and checked into our room, which was a few stories above and open stage, where a band played covers of songs like "Ladies Night," and "Electric Slide," and the ever-popular "It’s Raining Men." I quickly asked for and received a room change to a quieter side of the hotel.

After a quick nap, Anne and I set out to explore Atlantis. WOW. Everywhere you go here, there are aquariums, filled with the most amazing marine life you’ll ever see: countless sting rays and reef sharks, huge groupers, manta rays with fifteen-foot wing spans, and schools of tuna and barracuda. This place is huge, too. It takes twenty minutes just to walk from one side to the next, and that’s without stopping to stare open-mouthed at one of the aquariums, or to just look around and marvel at how lucky we are to be in such a beautiful place.

We ate dinner in this place called "The Cafe," which is in a huge atrium, with one wall formed by one of the largest aquariums in the resort. I nearly choked on my dinner more than once when a giant shark or manta ray glided through the water just past us.

Though there was much more to see and do after dinner, we made our way back to our room, collapsed into bed around ten, and slept with the windows open for fourteen hours.

More later . . .

so this is the new year

Posted on By Wil

Happy 2006, everyone!

Anne, the kids, and I spent the day on New Year’s Eve with all of my friends, playing nerdy games (Frank’s Zoo is one of my new favorites) and eating all sorts of awesome food, because several of my friends have developed a passion of cooking in the last few years — if you can convince your friends to fall in love with cooking, go for it. Trust me, I know what I’m taking about. Then we headed home, (to beat traffic, rain and drunks) and rang in the new year by playing the Pop Culture edition of Trivial
Pursuit (it’s really fun, and the easiest of all the Trivial Pursuit
variants, IMHO) while Ferris and Riley tried to figure out just why the
hell we weren’t in bed, yet.

Yesterday, Ryan and I spent much of the day watching the Twilight Zone marathon on Sci-Fi. Gods, I love the Twilight Zone. I love it that I can count on every episode to either terrify me, make me think, or blow me away with some unexpected twist. I saw some episodes yesterday that I’d never seen before, in addition to the usual line up of Twilight Zone classics.

The Rose Parade, which usually happens on New Year’s Day, happened today instead, because Jan 1 was on a Sunday. It was the first time since 1955 that there’s been a massive storm on the parade, which meant that for the first time in several years, the stealth bomber didn’t buzz over my house and scare the shit out of my family. If you can catch the parade on HD, it’s worth it.

Today is a busy day for Anne and me, because we’re leaving on the red eye tonight to go to the Atlantis resort on Paradise Island in the Bahamas for the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure poker tournament.

While we’re down there, I’ll do my best to provide daily tournament updates, similar to my WSOP updates, at CardSquad.com. I’ll also do my best to update interesting personal stuff here.

wpt followup, games of our lives, GATORWATCH!!1, galactica

Posted on By Wil

I wrote a follow-up article to my story about the controversy between the World Poker Tour and some top tournament pros:

The
recent controversy between the World Poker Tour
and several top tournament pros doesn’t seem to be slowing down at all, despite an open letter to the poker community
from WPT Co-founder Steve Lipscomb.

To briefly recap: The World Poker Tour requires all tournament players
to grant rights to the WPT to use their image and likeness in pretty much any way the WPT chooses, without ever
compensating the players for that use. Several top tournament pros aren’t happy with the agreement, including WSOP
Champion Chris Ferguson, who told me that he is unable to play in WPT events, because the release he is required to
sign would cause him to be in breach of at least one of his existing contracts.

[. . .]

Steve Lipscomb says, "The latest hot button issue seems to be the filming release we require players to sign
before they play in World Poker Tour events. The release we utilize is a standard filming release that all production
companies must have signed by everyone they film – or the television broadcaster will refuse to air our material.
Filming releases are always broadly drafted to protect against frivolous law suits. The language is clear. The
production company can use all the footage it shoots and the person’s image in all media.

But, the story
does not end there. The World Poker Tour is a business. We value our relationship with WPT players and have always
acted with great care and deference when using player images. The few players now trying to stir up controversy around
player releases are lost in hypotheticals – not reality."

[. . .]

[I]f the WPT is not interested in using some of the rights they’re demanding, why
are they making the demands in the first place? Anyone with any business savvy will have a very hard time accepting
"Just trust me" in this case. In fact, a top player, speaking to me on condition of anynomity said, "[Steve Lipscomb] says he needs the releases to be as they are to protect WPT, but
players have offered to sign a release like the WSOP and they refused. In response to complaints about their video game
rights, they did modify their agreement to explicity rule out making avatars of the players without their consent.
However, that was the only limitation.  By only excluding that, they could use clips of you in the game, or even
put your face on the box, with no compensation!  In fact, because they reserve these rights, a player can NOT
grant exclusive rights to any video game company, because WPT already reserves certain rights. That’s just one
example."


Yeah! Check me out! I get anonymous sources! Woo! Anyway, if you’re interested in the drama, check out the full post at CardSquad, which includes comments from Annie Duke and Daniel Negreanu.

This week’s Games of our Lives follows that advice I indirectly took from Joel Hodgson and goes for some jokes that are really funny to me, but may be lost on part of the audience:

Gameplay: You play a little handy guy with cute feet and a
jaunty hat. Your enemies are also little handy guys, but they’re green
(the universal color of evil) and have frowny faces to go with their
cute little feet. Your goal is to clear all the dots in a maze, while
the other little handy guys try to stop you. What sets Got-Ya apart from all the other Pac-Man
knockoffs is the addition of RoShamBo. You and your enemies represent
Rock, Paper, or Scissors, and when you hit each other, you’ll live or
die based on the classic rules of RoShamBo. Scattered around the maze
are dollar signs, and when you pick one up, you can change into
whichever form you want. But beware! The other little handy guys will
also change form randomly.

Could be mistaken for: Ms. Pac-Man, The Hand, a trip report from the Tiltboys

Kids today may not like it because: There is no bonus level where they get to "Circle" their opponents.

Kids today may like it because: When they complete a level,
their little handy guy is magically transformed into something that
looks an awful lot like the Kool-Aid Man. Oh yeah!

Finally, the latest installment of GATORWATCH!!!11! is up at blogging.la:

As 2005 draws to a close, I look back on the year, and ask myself a
lot of questions: Is it worth living here, with the traffic, and the
overcrowding, and the high cost of living? Why didn’t I hike up to
Mount Wilson this year? Will the Los Angeles Dodgers of Los Angeles
make another exciting run at third place in 2006?

But the biggest question, the one that’s kept me up at night, is: What the hell happened to GATORWATCH!!!!!111!?!!??
I mean, for days, we had reporters camped out on the shores of Machado
Lake! There was scandal, and intrigue, and drama, and the Crocodile
Hunter was coming to town to save us all from Reggie the Killer
Alligator. Then, as quickly as the GATORWATCH!!!!!111! started, it stopped.

Until yesterday, baby, when GATORWATCH!!!!!111! was back in full effect, when two jerkass dirtbags were arrested and charged with dumping Reggie the Killer Alligator

And with that, I think I can take a break from the computer. I’ve written so much in the last 48 hours, it’s hard to figure out where my desk ends, and I begin.

In fact, yesterday, Nolan came into my office and asked me if I could take a break so we could go do something together.

"What did you have in mind?" I said.

"I don’t know," he said, "anything, really. I’m getting kind of bored."

"When I’m finished with this piece, we’ll go out for a bite to eat," I said.

"Okay," he said, "I guess it’s back to my Galactica-a-thon."

"Your what?" I said.

"Oh, I’m just having a Galatica day while you’re working," he said. "You were right, it’s awesome!"

I was so excited, I called Anne, and told her that I’d successfully introduced Nolan to the greatest Sci-Fi series in history.

"Oh man, you’re totally corrupting my children," she said.

"They are totally 42% nerd, now," I said.

I waited for a moment, but the reference was lost on her, as she’s only 8% nerd.

"I gotta get back to work," she said.

"Okay. I love you."

"I love you too. Nerd."