Just Another Post From Your Card-Playing Half-Uncle

Persuadeo’s Review of Rob’s Vegas & Poker Blog

Yesterday I was checking my Twitter feed and saw that the blogger, persuadeo had just published another in a series Poker Blog Roll posts where he reviews other poker blogs. Persuadeo is a relatively new poker blogger.  I have been remiss in not giving his blog the attention it deserves.  I only became aware of it fairly recently.  Mr. persuadeo discusses poker and hand histories in a deep, thoughtful way, certainly more cerebrally and educationally than anything you’d find here.  I have added his “Out of Position” blog to my blog roll, and I strongly recommend you check it out. 

I had checked one or two of his other poker blog review posts, wondering if he had found my little corner of the poker blogosphere worthy of mention.  And the ones I had seen made no mention of me.  Now, Mr. persuadeo had on at least one recent occasion (see here) commented on one of my posts, so I knew he was aware of my blog.

But I guess because I wasn’t following his blog regularly enough, I had missed his review of my blog.  In the post he did yesterday (see here), he reviewed a site that purported to list “The Top Online Poker Player Blogs to Follow 2016,” and complained that it listed a lot of blogs and a lot of “really not” blogs that aren’t very active any more. But he claimed that the site did mention Rob’s Vegas & Poker Blog.

Well, as it turned out, I guess by the time he published his post, the link he put in for that listing had been finally updated, and they no longer list my blog on their recommendations.  Oh well.  Mr. persuadeo himself complained about the general worthlessness of the site, so I don’t think I’m losing out on much.

But more importantly, he pointed out that he had reviewed my site previously, and linked back to his post with the review.  And here’s what he said in the newer post:  “One of the few (blogs) to make it through the clutter is soft-porn aficionado Rob, a lovable low stakes grinder in Vegas we’ve already reviewed…”

Well that certainly got my attention. I followed the link to his review of my blog. I read it of course, and it was….interesting.  It was quite flattering….for the most part. It was very funny.  It was accurate and opinionated.  I was certainly glad to be included on a blog that covers poker strategy so much more in depth than I presume to do here.  Mr. persuadeo is an excellent writer and has a definite way with words. 

The link to his post about my blog is here and without asking for permission to do so, I am reprinting his review below before I respond to it.  Perhaps it is bad form to reprint it without asking for permission, but I feel it is fine to do so since it is about my blog and about me.  So here is his review:

http://robvegaspoker.blogspot.com/

Posting Frequency: Superb

Design: Clickbait

Writing quality: Buoyant

Overall rating: One of the Regs

This blog is a pokosphere standard. This blogger has earned it, with hundreds of posts apparently approaching an astounding 875k total pageviews. This is the bottom stakes life of Vegas, and if you are a weekend warrior 1/2 player with a hankering for a trip or to retire in the gambling desert, you can save yourself a great deal of vacation money and trouble by following Robvegas. Amusingly, the second subtitle of his blog is nearly Atari pixelated, and combining that with the out of focus background, contrasted with the very readable black on white text boxes, we get to share the feeling of one of those old dudes who leans forward and squints to read the board… probably not a coincidence.

This blogger is engaged: he posts, tweets and promotes all kinds of poker things. He covers the daily Vegas tournament scene, like a drunk recounting midday happy hour specials, in one of those casino monthlies designed to soak up coffee spills. He has written so much he has four posts in the category of “Penis Mentionings.” This guy, in other words, is poker room furniture. The writing is simple, clear, and is spaced well, a nicety for internet reading. He even generously tries to rescue his own posts with threadsaver photos, dirty granddad style. He’s your card playin’ half-uncle who makes every game and seems to like your mom quite a bit. You have to root for him, because if you’ve read his hand histories, it’s the classic story: the nice guy with all the yarns who loves poker and gives his all for the game, but just isn’t very good at it. It’s touching and fun. Go Rob.

I laughed all the way through it, even though there were a few times I cringed just a bit.

I’ll grant that Mr. persuadeo was exaggerating for comedic effect a couple of times.  I mean, in the new post, saying that I am a “soft-porn aficionado.”  Ok, an obvious reference to the pics I usually use to complement a post.  They are not soft-porn, of course.  They are cheesecake. It kind of started as silly schtick. But readers seem to like it (even the female ones) and whenever I do a post without an “appropriate” pic, I get complaints.

To pick a nit (which makes sense, because I am such a nit), he refers to me as a grinder.  I don’t consider myself that at all.  A grinder is someone trying to make a living at poker, to the best of my understanding.  I’m a recreational player, never claimed I could win enough money to survive at the game.  I make a living in the poker biz, but not as a player.

He did make me re-think the logo on top of the blog, perhaps I should explain.  It comes from a pic I took of t-shirt I got from the Excalibur many years ago for playing in their “Strip poker tournament.”  I seem to recall discussing this recently, or maybe I didn’t.  That was the slogan for the tournament where they had a woman taking off her clothes during a poker tournament.  Since it was in the middle of the casino, the lady only stripped down to a PG-13 rating.  But just to put something up there, when I started the blog and had no idea about graphics, I took a pic of the part of the t-shirt that says “Every pair’s a winner” and used it.  I suppose the blog has been successful enough that I really should make it look more professional, he surely has a valid point.

In fact, not long ago, someone sent me a new, nicer logo to use.  It has the same slogan and you can actually see on it my Twitter profile page, although it doesn’t fit fully there. Unfortunately, I couldn’t make it fit on the blogger template I use at all.  I suppose when I have more time one of these days I will work on the whole look of the blog, I reckon it could use some sprucing up. 

Now, he says, “He has written so much he has four posts in the category of ‘Penis Mentionings.’”  This is just factual incorrect.  In fact, I have 25 posts in that category.  But more importantly, I have 30 posts in the category of “vagina mentionings,” and he fails to mention that at all.

This line totally cracked me up: “He’s your card playin’ half-uncle who makes every game and seems to like your mom quite a bit.”  Again, obviously totally exaggerating for comedic effect, right?  Because you know, I’m much more into 25-year-olds than MILF’s. (Now you see, there was my turn to make a joke).  

But being the serious poker player he is, Mr. persuadeo can’t leave without taking a shot at my poker playing skills—or should I say lack thereof?  “You have to root for him, because if you’ve read his hand histories, it’s the classic story: the nice guy with all the yarns who loves poker and gives his all for the game, but just isn’t very good at it.”  Here I suppose he is not exaggerating for comedic effect.  I take that as a legitimate criticism. 

As I re-explained very recently, I never intended this blog to be in-depth discussion of poker strategy, or to show off my vast poker knowledge (good thing, huh).  But it worked out differently than I intended. You know, I’d much rather be writing the next “vagina mentionings” post than the next post where I talk about how I played (or misplayed) a hand.  But I have to kill time between the “VM’s” with poker content.  So yeah, I know going in there’s an excellent chance I will make myself look clueless about poker when I write about hands.  I do it as a service to my readers, who want fresh content and hopefully, I can make that entertaining for them. And at least discussing my errors gets me some good feedback that can possible help my game (or not).

Mr. persuadeo leaves on a positive note.  “It’s touching and fun.  Go Rob.”

Actually, that’s pretty awesome.  If I can entertain a serious student of the game such as persuadeo with this silliness, I am quite pleased.  And I can also take comfort in the fact that he failed to lay on me the one criticism I get from just about everyone—that my posts are too long. That alone is pretty sweet.

So, in closing, I want to thank Mr. persuadeo for his review, for his support, for his well-wishes and his praise (along with some tough love).  Check out his blog, it’s worth reading even when he isn’t talking about me.