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Breaking Media, Politicians & Celebrities Since 1995Tabloid news for broadsheet readers |
THE International Monetary Fund says “inflation concerns have resurfaced after years of quiescence”.
Why? Because food and energy is getting more expensive, that’s why.
Just look at the crude oil market shoot for the stars. The price of crude has reached a record of almost $124 a barrel – that’s a rise of 99 per cent in the past 12 months.
WHAT does a poker chip look like to you?
It’s not a trick question, and, no, there’s no GSCE in Chipology for answers of between 200-300 words. Discuss.
It’s just that the Poker Anorak has just spotted a 20-year-old Canadian visiting her local bank.
In her hand she holds a roll of chips.
We should note that in Canada there exists the two-dollar coin, the Twonie.
The name is a cunning blend of the number “two” with the name of the Loonie, Canada’s one-dollar coin.
We should not mock. In the UK, the two pound coin has yet to earn a nickname.
Suggestions on a postcard as to what it should be called.
Back to the woman in the bank. She hands the teller the coins and makes off with the equivalent in cash, about $100.
Clever stuff.
Only she then tries the same trick again in the same bank and is collared.
Who has not be so defrauded by chips or tokens? Is there any gambler who has not sifted through their fruit machine winnings and found a Kenyan Schilling, a washer or a homemade piece of metal?
We can recall those halcyon days of 50pence parking meters, which could – we are told, yer honour – be triggered by wrapping a bent matchstick around a 10pence piece.
The question is not so much one of honesty but if poker chips have any intrinsic value, other than the number the casino has ascribed them.
What is a chip worth, and can a chip ever be worth as much as money?
Discuss.
IT’S hard to look at the cards when there’s an aroused bull approaching from the rear.
Is that tell on the other’s players face, a bead of sweat, or is it a line of snot flicked from the bull’s flared nostrils?
This is entertainment in the USA. This is rodeo day at Angola Prison, Louisiana, where Convicts’ Poker is the go.
The game’s winner is the last man sitting as the bull stampedes the table. He gets $50.
The show’s finale is called Guts and Glory. The clue is in the title.
YOU’Ve made it to the Main Event WSOP final table.
You and eight others are now vying to win the millions. You’re on a roll and keen to get on with it. You’re as hot as Vegas on July 14.
July? That’s too soon. You need to wait until Nov. 9 for the next hand to be dealt.
Jeffrey Pollack, the WSOP commissioner, says: “This is no different than the final chapter of American Idol or The Apprentice. It’s about building interest and excitement for the final chapter of this story.”
WOULD you steal from a bank? And is a bank a legitimate target, more so than, say, a casino, an orphanage or a blind man’s purse?
This is a hypothetical question and in no way suggests that you are a chancer on the look out for an easy buck.
It’s just that two “poker kings” who stole £150,000 to fund a Vegas spree have been jailed for 18 months.
The Scotsman newspaper reports on Brothers Mohammed Imran, 33, and Mohammed Irfan, professional poker players who stole more than £150,000 from cash machines over three days.
POKER fans, punters and living things, every wonder what the odds are of dying from a certain misadventure?
Well wonder now more:
YOU can learn to play poker.
You can learn to play poker in a classroom, just as you can learn to drive a car in a dodgem, learn to be an astronaut in a game of Space Invaders and learn to play tennis by eating strawberries at Wimbledon.
In the Olympus Ballroom at the Caesars Indiana Hotel & Casino, the WSOP Academy is teaching people to play poker.
It’s a WSOP Academy poker camp.
AMY’S audition for Sarah Ferguson: The Engagement Years continues for another week.
The ginger hair, the lurid frilly, fussy hideous dresses and the fetish for open-toed sandals, alleged, are all reminiscent of young Fergie in her pomp.
Such a reason surely lies behind the fact that Amy is 250-1 on the Betfair markets to be named as I’ll Do Anything’s Nancy.
If Amy wants to improve her chances, we suggest she goes for the Bianca Jackson look, the EastEnders harridan whose return to the soap brought with it an upsurge in viewing figures.
On the telly, we like our gingers boisterous and feisty. Amy needs to break some cups and start calling Lloyd Webber Andaaaaaayyyy.
YOU got to know when to gold ‘em, know when to fold ‘em…”
You gotta la-la-la-la-dum-dum, la-la-la dum-da-kerchum…
Who can forget the rousing theme song to the England rugby team’s World Cup bid?
But not all poker lyrics are so memorable. The Poker Anorak takes a look at five of the most interesting poker lyrics of all time:
5: Poker Lyrics - Electric Light Orchestra
Play me another hand,
Loose everything I am,
Until we meet again.
To rhyme “hand” and “gain” is no easy thing. But having achieved the barely possible, ELO move on to safer ground:
A POKER game in New Mexico has decided the outcome of an election.
It is democracy in evidence.
Well, it beats deciding who wins on Hanging Chads.
Over in the United States, Josie Richards has a pair of nines.
NUDITY in Las Vegas. The Mirage casino is opening its Bare lounge.
The Las Vegas Review Journal describes it thus: “You can enjoy European-style sun bathing in its two luxury pools while a DJ spins the latest in party music. You don’t have to worry about anyone looking in as you’ll be secluded by towering palms.”
The idea that its takes a gigantic palm tree to secure your modesty is an attractive one for many male revellers, we are certain.
I QUIT.
No. Not I the Poker Anorak, but blufDaddy on the forums. And why has he quit? Why does anyone stop playing poker?
Says he: “Never ever playing a single hand of poker ever again. Too fkin stressful.”
But the stress is addictive, is it not? The stress, or the thrill if you will, is the thing that keeps many of us playing poker.
Says stu in response: “See you next week…you know you’ll be back.”
Some would say that this is tantamount to addiction. Maybe there is a trace of that. But what is wrong being addicted to what you enjoy?
The prevailing mood is one of banstabation – tobacco, fat people and junk food. What next?
POKER’S most romantic couple, walking busted flush Pamela Anderson and straight-to-tissue box home movie star Rick Saloman, are going their separate ways.
But instead of divorcing Paris Hilton’s co-star, the former “Baywatch” babe has cited “fraud” in court papers filed in Los Angeles.
Anderson filed for divorce in December, just two months after saying “I do”, “I will” and “depends on the motivation”.
As you know, Pammy and Ricky exchanged vows last October in Las Vegas, where Anderson was working as illusionist Hans Klok.
In their lives, all the world is a stage. And we are now wondering what fraud could have been perpetrated that ended up in a marriage, especially when it all seemed so real?
Your suggestions, please…
NO super casino. No big tent politics in the big tent in south-east London.
So no super casino for Manchester. Unlucky. You lose. Government decision is final. At least you Mancunians have your trams to keep you amused.
The Government says a super casino thing would have been less than super. It would, the protectors conclude, have fuelled problem gambling. Hazel Blears, the shrill Communities Secretary, says the massive gaming halls would have added little to local economies. Do we believe her?
The Government cares for local economies. It cost over £1million for the councils interested in hosting a super casino to submit their bids. The local economies must be delighted at the Government’s fiscal nous.
But there will be eight large casinos. And there will be eight small casinos. The top slot machine pay out will be £4,000. Why £4,000 and not, say, £10,000 is unclear. Perhaps the Government can hold a review and find out.
To do so would be responsible. But did you know that “only 360 out of 3,800 licensed operators have so far this year made contributions to the Responsibility In Gambling Trust”?
Boyish Andy Bunham, the eager Culture Secretary, tells us it is so; so it must be.
But he is not here to praise such largesse in the gaming industry. He is here to say: “This is not acceptable. Promises have to be kept.” And, no, the Government never promised a super casino, it just encouraged you to believe there would be one.
IN the Las Vegas Review-Journal, news of bouncers in Las Vegas:
Sources have been telling me that doormen at several clubs are clearing $8,000 to $10,000 a night before they share tips. So much cash is pouring in that some doormen are making $400,000 to $500,000 a year, several nightclub executives told me.”Pure has guys at the door making more than the president,” said one executive with intimate knowledge of the cover-charge system. He was referring to the annual salary of the president of the United States, which is $400,000, plus benefits.
Play online for an Anorak bonus
WE return now to the theme of poker robots.
Sorry, chaps, still having log in troubles. Have our log in details been altered?
We return now to the theme of poker robots. We return now to the theme of poker robots. We return now…
News from the Casino de Montreal where the world’s largest multi-table poker tournament ever run on automated poker tables is to be staged.
Of course, this is all about human intervention. It’s PR for the casino. But what of the bigger picture? Do we need croupiers? And isn’t this just like playing online poker in a bigger room with a shared toilet?
SAYS Roy Hattersley: “We’re the slot machine party
To make casinos profitable, new gamblers have to be attracted to their tables. It will be gullible local citizens from Wolverhampton and Hull, not Hong Kong millionaires and the Las Vegas super-rich, whose money the casino owners take home. The Government knows it. That is why it attempts to obscure its shame by introducing “safeguards” that objective observers agree will be largely ineffective. At a time when the Home Office proposes another “crackdown on serious crime”, the casinos would undoubtedly attract an international army of undesirables.
Casinos are regulated, not illegal. Unlike Labour, their funding is not so murky. What is an undesirable - a liar, politician, a lawyer? And what of entertainment - casino have theatres, eateries and resorts?