The Adventures of JStar88 on The Blue Marble

Drinking in Toronto in December

I’m not normally much of a drinker. While I enjoy a Maker’s Mark bourbon whiskey on a cold night, a freezing pale ale on a hot night, and a nice Australian or South African shiraz or pinotage on any other night, I’m not the type of guy who thinks of getting wasted as a worthwhile activity in and of itself.

I enjoy the warmth and conversational lubrication that a few drinks usually provide, but in my adult life have generally stayed away from the filthy, slobbering, disgusting malodorous mess that accompanies over-indulgence in recreational intoxicants.

I like being in control of my body and mind. I don’t have any strong desire to relive the embarrassment of almost-forgotten days when I may have said or done something I would later regret. Missing hours, mysteriously bruised body parts, waking up in strange, fuzzy situations and being urged to make the sincerest of apologies in the most ambiguous of circumstances is … well … not always fun.

On the off-chance that I may actually choose to have more than just a few, I have a strict rule that dictates this only occurs among my best of friends, trusted people who will go to whatever lengths necessary to protect me from myself – even though I’m known as a ridiculously happy drunk – and who will forgive me in the event The Stupid Imp who lives on my left shoulder manages to weave his messages of ridiculous tempestuousness and false bravado through my nearly-impermeable thick skull and sticky membrane of reason.

Because I’ve been living away from these close friends for so long, I’ve trended towards moderation, believing the old adage better safe than sorry rings rather true.

However, I’m now back in Toronto for a few weeks’ rest and relaxation, and, as another proverb goes: all things are good in moderation, including moderation.

It’s sufficient to say that we made the appropriate exceptions.

About a dozen of us met up in my old neighbourhood at The Gypsy Co-Op on Queen Street West, where we enjoyed some apertifs and an uninspiring meal. Fortunately the shots we had to chase the bourbons to wash away the taste of the meal helped clean our palate for further consumption.

A few of my boys came out, and we were our usual high-energy selves. Jay, Noah, myself and Farf are pictured above. The Flink was also present, amid a bevvy of attractive ladies and gents, but alas we have no photos with her in it that could be published without severing either our friendship or some part of my body...

It's almost a shame that you can't see what Farf's t-shirt says...

Kim and Claire sharing their love for film...

A toast to ... well, let's just say it was one of many toasts to many things. At this point, we had passed through Squirrely's (next to the Gypsy Co-Op) and made our way to Paddy Murphy's.

Why Paddy Murphy's, you might ask? Well, Noah insisted we go there to indulge in a plethora of $2.50 shots. He thought it would be fun to alternate jagermeisters with jack daniels for an hour or so... Chasing shooters with shooters? Sure, why not...

Alas, it caught up with some of us.

And this bill is only interesting because of the shot count (posted due to popular request). It reads more like a boxing score card than a bar tab. And keep in mind that this was the third bill of the evening...

The rest of the night was quite fun, full of public displays of singing, dancing, colour and affection. Until next year!

posted by jstar88 @ 8:26 AM 0 comments   

Building VS Buying at the Summit

I presented at The Poker Summit Europe in London yesterday. My topic was Building VS Buying: How to choose between a Network and Proprietary Technology and it was targeted towards all the people who are STILL in the process of launching new online poker brands - and considering doing so with their own technology.

My presentation was essentially a warning to these people. It wasn't heavy corporate propaganda or necessarily geared towards converting people to our platform. It was an educational check-list of most of the considerations that need to be taken into account before making that kind of important decision and massive investment. I even included a slide listing the 12 major online poker networks, and encouraged people to do their due diligence before agreeing that our platform was the best in the market (said tongue-in-cheek, even though it is).

I am aware of at least eight companies who are getting ready to launch new online poker products (sites and networks) in the next few months . Their products - or at least the clients I have demoed or seen demoed - range from appalling to brilliant. But their back-end systems ... oi, my aching neck ... give me empathetic stress just to think about.

I asked one of these companies what they were going to do about "trust issues" and they asked what I meant. Off the top of my head, I rolled out: "anti-fraud, anti-collusion, anti-dumping, anti-bots, anti-cheating, enforcing privacy policies, maintaining account security, monitoring phishing and pharming attempts in real-time and shutting them down, allowing and enforcing player limits and self-exclusion, fingerprinting devices, getting a stamp of approval on their RNG and keeping players' money safe."

Their response was that they are using SSL 3.0 on "state-of-the-art servers, firewalls and routers" at a top-tier facility in Curacao.

Being a professional, I kept my upper and lower jaws together and wished them the best of luck with their launch.

Sometimes I feel like I'm the only one who actually paid any attention during the Dot Com explosion and subsequent implosion. Just because an "e-business" had compelling graphics and good promotions, success was not guaranteed. Fundamentals like trust, support and customer experience are vital!

If there are three lessons I've learned time-and-again during the last three years in the online gaming business, it's that: 1) Java really isn't write-once-run-anywhere (it's more like write-once-debug-everywhere); 2) dealing with scalability is never just a matter of plug-and-play - latency issues can kill a business; and 3) just because you have a cool URL with the word "poker" in it does not mean you're going to get rich.

- - -

On a related, but completely different note, a high point of the conference was a late-night poker game I played in at the Royal Garden Hotel. People from five of the major networks were represented at the table and the insults going back and forth were hilarious! I can't possibly include any names or quotes without being accused of libel and slander, but it's good to know that everyone in the industry is paying close attention to everyone else. Fear and respect, baby. Fear and respect.

posted by jstar88 @ 8:37 PM 2 comments