What's In a Name?

I am currently in Los Angeles visitng with some old friends from USC. It is a little surreal being back here after three years, especially considering I haven't seen some of these people since we graduated back in 2005.

One such person is my friend, Heather, who was my roommate freshman year of college. But here is the really odd thing: since we have last seen each other, she has decided she no longer wants to go by "Heather" and instead refers to herself as Demetria, a play on her maiden name (she got married our senior year).

WTF right? Please tell me others find this as bizarre as I do. Another friend and I were talking about it and agree that you can't just up and change your name, much in the same way you can't just go and give yourself a nickname rather than earn one in a more organic and natural manner. If people ask, I tell them I go by Jess a lot, but I find it bizarre to even introduce myself as anything but Jessica because Jessica is my given name and Jess is something people who have gotten to know me call me.

They also call me Fetch. Sad, right? Poker is a world of nicknames--everyone has some alternative identity. For the online players, their screename serves as their nickname (we'll return to this in a future post) and, for many live pros, their nickname indicates the nature of the way they play like John "The Razor" Phan or, more hilariously, Allen "The Chainsaw" Kessler.

How did "Fetch" come about you may wonder? Court Harrington, that's how. Well, Court and the fact that I tend to just do what I am told without much of a fight. "Walk from the convention center to the Masquerade Tower? Sure" "Go take this to Joe Sebok" "OK!" Obviously, you can just stand to reason how he took to calling me Fetch.

Perhaps my favorite Fetch story is when I received a text message from Court that read: "Fetch-there is a bottle of tylenol in my backpack. Take that and $100 to Jeremiah please."

A few things to clarify:
1) Jeremiah is Jeremiah Smith, a former poker media person turned frequent tournament chip leader. Every event Jeremiah plays he manages to be the chip leader in, unfortunately just not at the very end of play when it matters the most.

2) The $100 is not in Court's backpack. It is assummed Fetch will take $100 of her own money and pass it along to Miah so he can get more masseuse time.

3) Jeremiah is not a P5er, we are not covering him for P5s Live, and therefore it is in no way expected of me to perform this task as part of my job.

Yet, I find myself not even questioning it as I wander into the media room, grab the Tylenol, get $100 out of my wallet, and trapse back out to the Amazon Room to Jeremiah's table.

After the task was complete, I simply texted Court back: "Fetch to the rescue."

What a Waste

I took this picture of Phil Collins for P5s about an hour before he busted out of the event in a brutal hand with Shannon Shorr (the guy sitting next to him). I liked it so much that I had to gank it and post it here though. Plus, Phil is one of the nicest guys on earth so I thought I would give him some props after a very disappointing finish. Phil is one of many, many great guys we have been covering in several of the events.

As for the photo itself, I don't have a background in photography, but I am constantly trying to make my P5s pictures more interesting and innovative than the simple portrait shot. Hopefully I will just continue to capture shots like these, but I don't want to get my hopes up.

Before I forget

I meant to post this when Mitch and I saw it last week, but apparently Chad "lilholdem954" Batista inexplicably started railing Alex "AJKHoosier1" Kamberis in an FTP tourney a couple of weeks ago. In addition to some hilarious and...er....grammatically questionable remarks on Batista's part, it raises a fascinating and potentially dramatic possibility":

The WSOP circuit event at Caesars Indiana is generally lacking in start power and entertainment. Don't get me wrong, New Albany pulls in more names that in should for being in the middle of podunk. Last year we had Scott Fischman, Barry Greenstein, Mimi Tran, and Men Nguyen to name some notable live players. We also frequently get paid visits by none other than....Chad Batista, who won the event a couple of years ago. If the name doesn't clue you in, Alex Kamberis lives in Bloomington. Granted, I have never seen Kamberis at Caesars Indiana and, last I checked, he has been travelling to the more prestigious events, but the only thing going on close to the Indiana circuit event is the EPT in Monte Carlo.

In case you are a lil slow on the uptake, what I am getting at is that it is ENTIRELY possible that we could see a lilholdem ajk showdown right here in my own backyard and home away from home. Hey-yo! Mitch and I can't wait and plan on bringing the popcorn in case our wildest online poker dreams comes true.