What an interesting week. We had 09.09.09 and the anniversary of 9/11 in the same week. 09.09.09 was a big day here in Thailand since many Thais are very superstitious. Not Nancy Reagan consulting astrologers superstitious but fortune telling, amulet wearing, and changing your name so unlucky spirits can’t find you sort of superstitious.
Newspapers loudly declared that this auspicious date should be used to launch new ventures so expectant mothers rushed to hospitals hoping to induce labor, business deals were signed, and luk krueng (half Thai / half foreigner) pop star Tata Young launched her new album in Thailand. Meh.
The big news that has had poker rumor mills working overtime is whether or not Tom Durrrr Dwan will sign with Full Tilt Poker. My only reaction to the speculation is . . . who cares? Is anybody going to play or not play on Full Tilt Poker because of this? No offense to Dwan but I just don’t see this being the big news that many poker media outlets are making it out to be.
It looks like the KGC has completed its investigation into the Ultimate Bet cheating scandal and is naming names. Well, sort of. They’re naming screen names. Haley has some excellent commentary on the whole situation.
Post of the Week (That I Didn’t Write)
Post of the week goes out to my good amigo, Dr. Pauly. I think he articulates what I’ve always felt about Twitter; it’s a useful tool but not everyone who uses it should be using it. I do have to disagree with him on Annie Duke though. I have zero interest whatsoever in seeing pictures of what she eats.
I didn’t get many posts completed this week but there are a lot of ideas that I have in the pipeline that should be showing up here soon.
7 Famous Poker Players Who Have Had Brushes With The Law
Harrah’s Goes with 888 for Poker Platform
As usual the poker job market is still going strong so if you’re looking for work now is as good a time as any to consider a career in the online poker world.
International Affiliate Manager
Benelux Country Manager
Looking for Google Analytics Expert
Poker Manager
TV Producer
Danish Customer Service Representative – Online Poker
Bulgarian Customer Service Representative – Online Poker
French-English Global Events Assistant
Belgium Marketing Executive
PokerStars September Cash Bonus
Looking for some live poker events to attend?
PKR Heads-Up Grand Slam
PokerStars Baltic Festival
WPT Marrakech
Poker Cup Australia
English Poker Open
PokerStars.com European Poker Tour London Poker Festival
Czech-Slovak Poker Tour
£1 Million Grand Slam Series
Personal Musings
The other week I found myself stateless. By that I mean I woke up the other morning and was doing the ritual of unloading the contents of my pockets when it occurred to me that I had put my passport in the cargo pocket of my shorts but there seemed to be no passport. I had also put my mobile phone in there too and it was gone.
A frantic search yielded no clues as to the location of either item. I even used my home phone to call my mobile hoping to hear ringing from under my couch or some other mysterious location but it immediately went to a “this phone is not available” message in Thai.
I went back to the last place I was at the night before where I 100% remember having reached down and felt my passport in my pocket. I had had dinner at a pub/restaurant and stuck around to watch some MMA fights on television. Then I left there, walked across the street to 7-11, and from there caught a taxi home.
Nobody at the pub nor at the 7-11 reported finding a phone or passport.
So off to the US embassy I go. Funny thing is that you have to have a form of ID to enter the embassy. Fortunately I still had my old decommissioned passport so I was waved in. I guess if you lose it all you’re totally screwed.
The staff at the embassy told me that before I could apply for a new passport I had to get a police statement from the Thai police attesting that my passport was either lost or stolen.
So off to the Thai police station I go. They had me fill out a police report in English and then I had to pay some lady 50 baht ($1.40) to translate everything I had just written into Thai. I was given a copy of the report – which I now could not read – and off I go again. I never spoke with a Thai police officer.
It was too late to go back to the embassy so I went home, filled out all the forms, assembled all of the copies of documents and photos, and searched my apartment for the 300th time trying to figure out what happened to my passport.
Later I went over to the mobile operator I use AIS (actually the prepaid division is called 12Call but it’s all owned by AIS) and asked if I could get a new SIM card but keep my old number. After twenty minutes of intense typing I was handed a new SIM and told that it had no credit left on it because someone had used all of the credit on my old SIM. Well, at least I know the phone is in good hands. Bastard.
I hope they used my phone to call someone and they got bad news about someone in their family dying or their girlfriend wanted to break up with them. It’s times like these I really, really hope there’s some form of karma ruling the universe.
The next morning I went back to the embassy and turned in all of the required documentation and was told they would email me in about a week or two when I could come down and pick up my passport.
The major hassle isn’t necessarily the passport but my visa and right to be in the country. Technically, if a police officer stopped me and asked to see my passport I could be hauled into the police station and thrown in the slammer until they get everything sorted out. Just kidding. More likely I would have to pay a bribe to the cop. I love Thailand.
But the visa part was still a hassle since it was not just your typical make a border run every 90 days visa. I actually had an ED (education) visa, which means I don’t need to make border runs for a year. If I can’t get immigration to give me a new visa I have to leave the country again and apply in a foreign country.
I mentioned what happened to a friend and he said “Oh man, you f*cked up. You should have told them that it was damaged. If you say it’s lost or stolen it sets off a bunch of red flags because some terrorist could try to use your old passport.” While I appreciated the insight I really wasn’t looking forward to doing time for make false declarations on a passport application. Thai police can be paid off to overlook any crime (literally) but falsifying a US passport application is a federal crime and US law enforcement isn’t as keen on taking a 2000 baht ($60) bribe to look the other way.
When I received the email to come pick up my passport I went back to the embassy and waited in line. After about 20 minutes they called my name and the lady handed me my shiny new passport and some ratty booklet that looked like it had been pulled from some archeological dig. Hey, that’s my old passport! It had been run over, immersed in gutter water, and god knows what else but that sure as hell was my passport.
As soon as I recognized the passport I thought back to what my friend had advised. How would I explain that the passport had been destroyed beyond recognition and then have it suddenly reconstitute itself and end up in the hands of the embassy? Yeah, not even I could make up a story that would explain that one. Friends with questionable advice suck.
They never told me what happened or who turned it in but someone obviously found it and it had made its way to the US embassy. Not that it does me any good since it has a big “Cancelled” stamp on the front page but at least when I go to immigration they can see that I actually was in possession of a valid ED visa.
And that was my next chore. I spent about four hours the next day at Thai immigration filling out forms, waiting in lines, and getting copies of copies made. Eventually I walked out with some stamp all in Thai (which I can’t read) that seems to indicate that I hold a valid ED visa that is being transferred or extended to my new passport. Yippee! I asked the lady if I had to bring my old passport when applying for re-entry permits or for my 90 day reporting and she said I did which seems strange because if the passport was never recovered what would they do then?
Anyway, I am again a passport holding American citizen and as far as I can tell I’m legally allowed to stay here in Thailand.
Epilogue
The day I had noticed my passport missing I had double, triple, and quadruple checked that there was absolutely, positively nothing in my pockets, thrown the shorts in the dirty clothes hamper, and taken the hamper down to the lady who does my laundry.
I really never gave it any further thought until about a week and a half later when I was wearing the shorts again. I had just walked into a shopping center and took my sunglasses off and put them in my cargo pocket. A few steps later I heard a clinking sound and looked down to see my sunglasses on the floor.
After retrieving them I put my hand in the pocket and there was a huge hole in the bottom of the pocket that the sunglasses had fallen through. I guess that explains the missing passport and mobile phone.
photocred to hjl
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Hi, my name is Bill Rini and this is my poker blog. I've been blogging about poker and the poker industry since around 2003-ish. Like most people I started out playing poker as entertainment in home games whenever we wanted to sit around and smoke cigars, drink beer, and eat pizza, and needed a good excuse. I started playing online shortly after the first online card rooms opened and it wasn't long before I was playing 20, 30, or even 40 hours a week or more. One day I received a phone call about a program manager position at Tiltware which was the company that consulted to Full Tilt Poker on software development and marketing. After Tiltware I spent about 2.5 years working at Party Poker where I was the poker room manager.
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Thanks for the mentioning of my article on twitter!