by Minutes left of 2020 in Romania as I write this. (The time stamp will say 1st January 2021. I’ve never moved my blog off New Zealand time; they’re eleven hours ahead of us.)
New Zealand is one of the few places on earth to have a real New Year’s Eve. It’s (yet another) good advert for NZ to see the Sky Tower fireworks beamed across the planet. Sydney managed to have their famous pyrotechnics from the Harbour Bridge and the Opera House, even though they’re not out of the Covid woods. And that might be about it. We’ve got the odd banger going off in Timișoara as a write, but the usual organised stuff has been canned, as far as I know.
I’ve just finished second in a badugi tournament, for a profit of $45, after 4½ hours. (Badugi is a kind of poker, my favourite kind of poker, in case you’re wondering.) I survived a pretty dire moment in the second hour, but from then on I steadily chipped up. I pulled off some pat bluffs (not drawing any cards when you don’t have a real hand), which are the coolest, most adrenalin-pumping part of the game. Then when we were down to three I picked off pat bluffs (also known as snows) from both the other two players. When we got heads-up I had an enormous chip lead, but my opponent drew out on me twice when he was all-in, and mounted a comeback. He hit hands, I didn’t, and after quite a long back-and-forth I had to settle for second. So it could have been better, but my bankroll is up to $152.
I recently communicated on a poker forum with a guy from Chicago who’s knowledgeable about all kinds of weird variants, enjoys the game immensely, and is obviously a good player. But I had no idea (until I did a spot of googling) that he was famous. He’s 59, and a long-time production engineer for some of the all-time great indie bands, including Nirvana back in the day. The sound on In Utero, that’s him. He charges very little for his services, hence why he’s always been in such demand. And he’s been in a few successful bands himself (one of which was called Rapeman – I can think of better band names). He’s very outspoken about commercialisation of music, and I don’t blame him. Somehow he’s also an amazing poker player. In 2018 he took down the seven-card stud event at the World Series of Poker in Las Vegas. And he writes so eloquently. He’s a man of many talents.
Six minutes of the old year to go.
