Well, first off, what a magic place. Really. Such a cool part of the world -- great weather, great atmosphere, cheap beer -- as you can imagine, whales of times were had. I arrived on the Thursday afternoon after a 2 hour delay to my flight due to the french national pastime, la grève and quickly got checked into a pretty baller hotel after the one or so hours drive from Malaga where I'd landed. The drive down, incidently, took me through some of the coolest mountains I've ever seen, which included driving near this little gem:
Anyway, after getting myself nice and checked in to the hotel, I grabbed a quick beer and then headed out to meet my pal Hannes for dinner. Well, we didn't get quite as far as dinner as we quickly met some of his colleagues and friends in a bar and then later in the casino. Anyway, knowing I had an interview the next day, but not until 11am, I decided to sit and play a little 100NL. I sat for, I think, £90 or so (all the non-Euro cash I had on me) and within 4 hands I'd slightly more than doubled when I got A6dd in from the BB on an A62 board vs an UTG limper with AJ. Obviously the entire world had also limped, hence the slightly more than doubleage. I checked in the dark, he leads for more than pot, one caller, I 3bet, he 4bet jams and I snap after the original flatter has passed. Mbsfn, right?
Wrong.
A little later I lose a race for about 30 with TT v AK which is pretty standard, but the game is ridic soft so I don't mind that at all. Plenty of fish to take chips from, or so I thought. At one point I also lose my balls when I should have 4bet jammed A7o (btn) over him and he shows me QTo (bb) I told him he should 3bet to £21 if he had a ten in his hand...sigh. I'm so weak lol. Knew he was full of shit too, but didn't want to find A8 or something.
Key Hand 1:
I flat a small (to £4) raise in the BB with A2cc and with 4 callers already I'm getting zillions to one. 922r looks like the perfect flop for me, I lead, get 4 callers, someone shoves, I reshove, but only get the shovers £150 or so in the middle. I'm pretty sure that's how it plays out, but the point is that I lose about a £600 pot with A2 on a 922 board when AT gets there. Running T-balls, eh? Hannes immediately rubs me down by calculating that I was 99.49% to win right there. Sigh.
Key Hand 2:
Sigh. I get it in on the turn with top two on 85AQ, get called by 9T and a J-ball on the river. Sigh. All of a sudden I'm less than breaking even, down to about £55.
Key Hand 3:
Having got the required double up with JJ v TT on a Qxx board (I read people gooooood) I'm on about £130 when this happens. The 200NL game has just broken and people have joined this table. One guy has about £800 in front of him, and posts. He makes it £7 to go and I make it £21 in the SB with JJ again. Some Spanish retard (who gutshotted me twice already tonight, once in a big pot) has about £400 effective I guess (maybe a bit less) and he flats. Poster calls as well and I immediately think...hmmm, I might need a set here but we'll see. Anyway, board is JXXcc and I just jam. With £60+ in the middle, and I have £130 there's nothing else I can do here. I get called in both spots and it gets checked down. Turn 2s, River Qd. Retard flips KQcc for the busted draw, I show JJ and get shown QQ by the poster. Brilliant.
Anyway, that was me busto. Brilliant. Decided to take a taxi back to the hotel and not bother reloading.Must have run about a million quid behind EV, I think. Maybe more like £800-£1000, I guess.
The Next Day:
Anyway, the next day I make it over to the office where I'm being interviewed for about 10:45am and introduce myself. First impressions: Wow. Every Office should be like this. So laid back, well stocked out and cool as fuck. I'm quickly introduced to the HR lady, the current head of Fraud and the Chief Operating Officer. I get myself a water and crack on with answering the questions. About 2 hours later we've talked about everything, and I''m feeling good, before the COO leaves for another meeting and I'm left with the Fraud head and we talk some more about algorithmic approaches to Fraud detection and prevention and some other stuff, before she sets me a task of sifting through 300 lines of data looking for fraud indicators in the registration data. I think I do pretty well here, I don't know what fraud looks like in their system, but I know that irregular looking behaviour is a good place to start so I get a couple of algorithms and such running and bang up a quick snippet of VB code to find some obvious stuff for manual review. There was also some pretty straightforward ID validity test (pick the fakes out from these passports) and then another test of my language skills and customer service chops which I think goes fine too.
After about half the time, I meet Hannes for lunch in the staff canteen and enjoy a pretty nice chicken curry before having a cigarette on top of the building looking out over the marina with Spain to my right and Africa to my left. Pretty. Fucking. Amazing. Anyway, Hannes lets me get back to work and I finish off. A little later, he gives me a tour of the office and I meet the team a little more formally than last night, then go back to the hotel feeling pretty pleased with myself.
That night I head over to the Casino again for beers and poker (losing £130, highlight of the night running AJ into AK on a AAx board against the most aggrofish at the table for stacks...sigh) but continue drinking and talking poker with loads of the guys, before heading to a leaving party for one of the company. On the way, we stop of at Hannes' baller as fuck apartment and have some Vodkas, obv. Anyway, long story short, I meet some more people, generally make a good impression I think, and I should find out on Friday if I got it. My initial impression and read on them is that I did well, and I'm confident, but we'll see. Definitely getting some positive vibes like.
Basically the company spared no expense in showing me what Gibraltar is like and what it's like to work for them. They treated me as a colleague, not an interviewee, for the whole time and I came away flabbergasted at how smart each and everyone of them was. Like not just in poker (even though some of their employees crush anything from 400NL all the way up to 2k/4k fixed limit. No joke. Ha. Sickos!) but in business as well. I was very impressed by them, and should they make me an offer I'd snap it off.
Anyway, this is long now, wish me luck, anyway.
No comments:
Post a Comment