Johnson, one of the owners of Card Player magazine. I also mentioned
that the whole staff was nice and very helpful. Actually I wasn’t being
one hundred percent truthful with that last statement because there is
one exception to the nice people at Card Player. The person I’m
referring to is Steve Radulovich, he’s the editor.
Steve’s always calls, sounding so cheerful, opening with, “Hi invincible,
(that’s what he calls me), How are things?” Just when I think he likes
me, he adds,”By the way, you need a column sent in by 4 P.M. Okay?
Bye, Pal.”
Well guess what happened about 20 minutes ago, you guessed it “Old
Pal Steve” called again. He sounded cheerful as ever, he said “Good
Morning, Invincible.” A little alarm went off in my head I just knew it
wasn’t going to be a good morning. I knew what the next line was
going to be and worst of all I just knew I wouldn’t be picking up my
grandson for the day as I had planned. I was right on all counts. Steve
uttered the dreaded words, “Need a column good buddy, by 4 P.M.” I
don’t know why, but when Steve sets a column deadline, he actually
expects it to be met.
It’s times like these that makes a man grasp at straws. So let me do
what I promised myself over a year ago I would never do, that is do a
column called random thoughts. The reason I said I would never do a
column called Random thoughts was because I knew those who did do
that type of column were actually saying they had nothing to write
about. So since I have nothing to write about today, here goes my
random thoughts column.
The last few tournaments that I have played in, it seems all the directors
have adopted the new method of racing off odd chips. They still use the
high card method, but now they only allow a player to win a maximum of
one chip. So if the odd chips amount to $75, there are three $25 chips
distributed, but instead of the player with the high card getting all three
chips, the three players with the highest cards are awarded one $25
chip each.
I have not heard one complaint from the players and everyone seems
happy with this new method. It keeps the chips closer to what each
player has in odd chips. It may not seem like such a big deal but when
you start racing off the larger denomination chips it can be very
meaningful. I know Linda Johnson recently mentioned how much better
this method is. Maybe it’s being redundant, but since everyone thinks
that this is a much better method, an extra pat on the back to the
tournament directors wouldn’t hurt.
I mentioned the above situation, because it made me ask myself, “why
didn’t we use this system years ago”? It seems sometimes we continue
to do things in a certain way, continuing to have problems, then
someone simply does or says something that makes sense. Something
that everyone can live with. Then, presto, change!
Another illustration of this is in the area of behavioral penalties. For
many years we complained about the behavior of some of the players.
It seems to me we talked about it for years. We were always discussing
how bad the conduct of some of the players was. There were endless
discussions about what should be done about it. Then one day Jack
McClelland enacted what we now know as penalties. Pretty soon ever
tournament would have behavioral penalties. It was such a simple
solution to that nasty problem why didn’t we do it years ago. Now
granted we are a way from being perfect, but all in all behavior has
improved tremendously. So another pat on the back to the tournament
directors for that.
The third area where the tournament poker world, is to be congratulated
is in the area of getting the tournaments started on time. It always
seemed to me one of the hardest parts of playing tournaments was
standing around waiting for the darn thing to start. I complained, almost
everyone complained. I think we have David Hriscina at the Orleans to
thank for proving that even with monster fields you could start on time.
Now everyone starts their tournaments on time or very close to it. In
fact we now take it for granted. We even softened up the master of late
tournaments Jack McClelland toward the end of his reign. Who said
miracles don’t happen.
Uh oh, the phone is ringing again….
For what it's worth ...
