From: Lee Daniel Crocker Subject: Virgin Trip Report The BIG upside: Spend a week off of work with a great gang of fellow geeks, playing in great poker games, never paying for meal, and making money besides. Compete with the world champion and TOC winner, outlast them both and get a cool new jacket. Finish 5th in team HORSE with Virgins.com. Having the first weekend in August off will definitely be part of all my future employment contracts. The minor downside: It was my impression that the side action in the NLH event was /way/ too much, and /did/ affect the integrity of the tournament. It wasn't even understated: several people were quite openly suggesting that tournament players use side action in their decisions, and I know of at least one short-stacked player who attempted to dump to a horse (and failed, as a bit of instant karma). But the fact remains: the tournament paid 18, and I took 17th. If only two players out of the 180 chose to dump their stacks to a horse rather than fight on, then I can't say I really earned this jacket I'm wearing. I don't know of any way to artificially limit the Calcutta money, but it ought to be considered. Other side action could be restructured as well. For example, last-longers between individuals (like Quick bets) are no problem and just add to the fun. But the "group" last longers like the SoCal/NoCal should be changed so that they are structured as pairwise individual bets rather than a single collective bet so there's no incentive for collusion. Whether or not the organizers consider this issue important enough to take some action, I would ask that they allow me, and any individual player who chooses, to withdraw from the Calcutta. I will also not participate in any "group" bets that encourage collusion, such as the team last-longers, though I'll be happy to take out a Quick bet or make a side bet with any individual. -- Lee Daniel Crocker "All inventions or works of authorship original to me, herein and past, are placed irrevocably in the public domain, and may be used or modified for any purpose, without permission, attribution, or notification."--LDC